


nevermore

by kybcr



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Child Abuse, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Implied Suicide Attempt, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Physical Abuse, Possessive Behavior, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Harm, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, dont say i didnt warn yall, implied attempted overdose, you know what riko is like just keep that in mind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-07-15 21:44:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16071947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kybcr/pseuds/kybcr
Summary: 1. kevin day and riko moriyama were children once. it seems strange, to think that numbers one and two, the exy trophies on a pedestal, were ever more than figures too far to reach. even kevin barely remembers being a real person.2. a study in a little raven boy, dropped from a cliff's edge and expected to fly before his wings grew in. riko moriyama is alive, and if the gods saw fit to let him survive the bullet to his head then kevin cannot lose him again.





	1. leave my loneliness unbroken

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [the wrong end of a wishbone](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13398891) by [crownsandbirds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownsandbirds/pseuds/crownsandbirds). 
  * Inspired by [eat their young - Fox!Riko AU](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/442013) by okayantigone. 



> collection of short vignettes. epilogue au in which riko survives and kevin takes him to psu, interspersed with moments from their past.
> 
> (sorry about the weird line breaks, i typed it up in google docs with double spacing.)
> 
> inspired by the works of narcissae and crownsandbirds- their fics that inspired me to write down the mess of ideas i had are linked here and i highly suggest you go check their amazing works out.
> 
> (eat their young isn't actually an external work, it's hosted on ao3 but i had to make ao3 think it was external by goo.gl linking it otherwise it wouldn't let me link a series)

 

The hospital smells like antiseptic and stale air barely masking a musk of decay. Kevin has never had any reason to be in a hospital before— he rarely even visited the medical wing in the Raven’s Nest. No, it was mostly in their bedroom that Riko and Kevin had stitches and bandaged each other back together. Sometimes right after Riko had taken him apart. Riko only ever wants— no,  _ wanted, he's gone now—  _ to hurt Kevin, never to permanently cripple him. Or at least up until he'd stomped on his hand.

 

Kevin has never quite realized how complicated a hospital is, how many sections and wings and areas. He's never had a particularly good sense of direction, and he doesn't like open, unfamiliar spaces. (Probably a product of being locked in Castle Evermore for most of his life.) Eventually, he finds the room that the caller told him to find— a cold voice on the other end of the line talking in sharp Japanese and just familiar enough to give him chills. Ichirou sounded and looked so similar to his younger brother, but sharper, more edges. Kevin has always thought Riko was the sharpest, bitterest person in existence, but in the rare moments when Kevin caught him off guard he sometimes looked his age; barely seventeen years old the last time he'd seen him, still round-faced and wide-eyed like a child Kevin barely remembers. Ichirou is nothing like that. He’s abraded, sandpaper rough and most of all, honest. His tongue isn't silver or poison like Riko. 

 

He knocks on the door, tentatively. Is he supposed to knock? Should he just come in? This is the kind of thing they don't teach but everyone seems to know anyways. A muffled “Enter,” and Kevin gingerly pushes the door open. 

 

For a moment, he's not sure what he's seeing. He forces his eyes to look up, past the body whose owner he already knows because he knows that frame better than himself, over hands familiar and capable of horrors that he's bandaged up too many times himself, up to Riko Moriyama’s face.

 

A white bandage stretches over his face, hiding the wound, but for a second Kevin is back in East Tower and he's just slammed the door open and burst in to see a gun fire and Riko’s head thrown backwards from the force of it like a puppet and—

 

“Surprisingly,” says Ichirou smoothly, cutting off Kevin’s thoughts, “my brother survived the execution.”

 

_ Surprisingly, _ he says, as if it's simply a pleasant surprise, like it's not a downright miracle, like Kevin can't feel his breath constricting in his chest because for less than a day he’s been chanting to himself  _ you're okay he's gone he's not coming back he's dead.  _

 

Kevin wonders if Ichirou notices that he's barely listening and then every time he speaks he's cutting through Kevin’s tangled thoughts. 

 

“He is, however, in a coma,” (and despite himself Kevin thinks  _ thank god,  _ then immediately regrets the thought) “and is not expected to recover. Since you were closest to him, I am leaving you the choice— in other words, if you wish to unplug life support.”

 

A laugh almost bubbles up inside Kevin. Oh, if only Riko could see him now. Now it's Kevin holding the keys to Riko’s life and he can choose to cut the threads, after more than a decade of Riko pulling his strings like a marionette. Kevin’s not ready to just be handed the keys like this— it feels too easy, too fast. 

 

“No,” he finds himself saying even as he thinks  _ yes.  _ “I can't… no.”

 

The idea of any existence where Riko isn't also existing somewhere in the world seems abhorrent and impossible. Perhaps Kevin is a little scared that if he lets Riko die, a soul so hopelessly tangled with his, then Kevin will lose part of himself too. But then, he thinks, he also thought it would be impossible to live without having Riko by his side at all times, but he managed that decently. With a lot of alcohol involved, true, but he made it work.

 

“Of course,” nods Ichirou, “but perhaps you could consider it a mercy to him? He is no longer alive, after all— I believe he's been declared brain-dead. If you change your mind, you can always come back.”

 

Kevin finds himself nodding gratefully. It doesn't seem like he's brain-dead, after all— no matter how battered Riko was, his beautiful face ruined with bruises or bleeding out out his eyes, he always had his sharp tongue. No matter how close to a corpse he was. And now, under all the white bandages, he looks so alive, like he's just asleep. His expression isn't quite completely clear and lost, like he looks when he's asleep, or Kevin could be imagining things. Does Kevin even still remember what Riko looks like asleep, after a year without sleeping in the same room as him? 

 

“And what if he wakes up?” asks Kevin. 

 

Ichirou’s tone is polite, but Kevin hears the masked pity. “If he does? If a miracle like that could happen, then clearly the universe wants him alive for whatever purpose.”

 

Kevin doesn't miss the thinly veiled meaning behind his words. Riko should be dead, but Ichirou will not kill him a second time, no matter what. He's almost grateful. 

 

Ichirou says something about how he's happy to foot the bill for Riko’s upkeep, since Kevin has earned the Moriyamas quite a large sum of money. Kevin barely hears him and as soon as the young lord is gone, he sits down by Riko.

 

“Remember when we were children, Riko?” he whispers. Words spill out of him like blood from an open wound. “Before… before you…”

 

***

 

After Kevin came to the Raven’s Nest after his mother died, he hadn't left for a year. The first time they'd stepped outside and smelled fresh air, when they were twelve, Riko had a mental breakdown. He’d been locked in Castle Evermore since birth and his entire world had been the Nest, up until it crumbled away around him when he realized exactly how large and terrifying the real world was, where lives didn't revolve around Exy and people had jobs and hobbies and relationships. 

 

Kevin has been looking forward to it all day, too. He’s distracted at practice, keeps thinking of fresh air and open skies. Riko smacks him with his stick and snaps, “What's going on, Kev?” 

 

“We're leaving the Raven’s Nest,” he says, but Riko merely narrows his eyes. 

 

“So?”

 

“So… don’t you want to see the outside world?”

 

“Is the outside world an Exy court? Will the outside world help us become the best players in the world?” And the unspoken part that Kevin heard now, when he looks back on the memory,  _ will the outside world take me to meet my father? _

 

“No,” he says, unsure. 

 

“Then I don't care about the outside world. It's not Exy.”

 

_ But don't you hate Exy?  _ he thinks. When they were toddlers Riko had screamed and cried and said  _ I hate Exy. I don't want to play Exy. Everyone only wants me to play Exy.  _

 

At the time Kevin didn't get it, but now he does. Having Exy force-fed to him for most of year has taken its toll and Kevin can't decide whether he hates or loves Exy. It’s the only thing he’s allowed to have— not even the music his mom had liked, his favorite color, his favorite animal, was he allowed to take with him to Castle Evermore. It’s just the school fight song, black and red, raven mascot. It’s disorienting, and though Kevin thought he loved Exy since Mom taught him to play and he loved everything about Mom, it was wearing him down. His life is so stuffed full of Exy that he's barely had a moment to grieve for Mom. He can't bring himself to resent her for dying, since in a way it's her fault for not being here to take him along anymore and he's stuck here playing Exy. 

 

Thinking of Riko as a toddler is confusing, because he doesn't really remember anything and what he  _ does _ remember is a child who Kevin can't reconcile with the Riko he knows now. Kevin thinks he remembers Riko laughing a lot, drawing pictures in fogged-up windows, pretending to be a prince while Kevin played his loyal knight. His mother didn't often take him to Castle Evermore, so he hadn't seen a lot of Riko. He  _ does _ remember the first time they saw each other after Mom died— Riko flinched when he held out his hand for him to shake. He watched him warily, like he hadn't played make believe with Kevin before or laughed with him when their hands were too small to hold Exy sticks. 

 

Another thing Kevin remembers: Riko never seemed to have any toys or watch children’s shows. There were Exy balls and miniature sticks for them to play with, and when they turned the TV on it was just Exy channels. 

 

The moment he steps outside into the university he wonders why it doesn’t feel like being set free, but more like being unmoored. He tells himself it’ll be better when he actually leaves Edgar Allan for a promotional trip to the city, but it doesn’t. 

 

Kevin ends up not having a lot of space left in his mind to try and make himself feel like he deserves this, because Riko is shaking like a leaf and rooted to the spot.

 

“Riko?”

 

His lips are parted slightly, like there was a question that blew away on the breeze Kevin hasn’t felt for too long.

 

“I…” he mumbles. “I didn’t think there was anything bigger than the Raven’s Nest.” His eyes are wide, not with wonder but with  _ fear.  _

 

Kevin’s hand finds Riko’s and wordlessly, he squeezes it. He doesn't let go, even as they ride the bus to the airport and through security.

 

Today, they're not the sons of Exy, but just two lost boys holding on to each other. Two boys set adrift in a world too big for them, anchored only to each other. 

 

***

 

Kevin's unsure of what he expected. That Riko might wake up, if he talked to him? His face, half-hidden under the bandage, is still blank and unmoving.

 

He barely remembers stepping away from Riko and making his way out of the hospital. Wymack shoots him a questioning glance when he's back at PSU but doesn't ask any questions. The other Foxes know better than to talk to him, too. Only Andrew asks him why he was gone about long enough for a round-trip to Virginia, and when Kevin holds out his hand in expectation Andrew passes him a bottle of whiskey and drops the subject. 

 

It feels dishonest, but the Foxes— or at least Andrew’s lot— can probably guess that if Kevin was getting drunk on a weekday it probably had something to do with the Ravens. Later that day, just as he's wondering if he can skip Columbia the coming weekend to return to Virginia, he gets a text from a hidden number that Riko’s been moved to Coastal Carolina Hospital, less than half an hour from campus by car. Kevin doesn't know if he feels horrified or relieved.

 

The shuttle bus running from campus to the city takes him to the city center far too quickly. The hospital is easy to find from there, and Riko even easier. 

 

Riko’s a good listener, silent as Kevin whispers his memories. He always has been. Even when he was in a violent mood he always let Kevin speak before tearing into him. Once, he'd said  _ you're the only one whose opinion matters to me, no matter how stupid your opinion is _ . Kevin wondered if he'd also been thinking of his father, Lord Moriyama, and that his opinion mattered, too. Mattered too much, in fact. If Kevin thinks about it, he can connect everything that went wrong to the fact that Kengo had never so much as acknowledged his son. If he had, maybe Riko wouldn't have been pawned off to Tetsuji and he wouldn't have had to be beaten and forced into a trophy of Exy. He might have grown up happy with real parental figures. He wouldn't have been so desperate to prove himself that he tore down everything in his way, using Kevin as a stepping stool until he was no longer useful and then stomped on him, too.

 

***

 

It's been two years since Kevin came to the Raven’s Nest for good. Scars, old and new, rope across every plane of skin that he can hide under Exy gear, but it's not his own wounds he's stitching up at the moment.

 

Riko’s silent as Kevin carefully sutures the gashes running down his upper arms. 

 

_ Why do you do this to yourself? _ Kevin had asked, near tears, the first time he found Riko slicing himself into bloody ribbons. 

 

_ It's about control,  _ he’d mumbled.  _ It's the last thing I can control.  _ Kevin couldn't bring himself to look into Riko’s glassy, numb gaze. 

 

That had been almost a year ago. Riko was right. There is nothing about themselves they can control from the moment they step into Castle Evermore, which for Riko had been right after he'd been born. Ravens aren't allowed to be people. They are here to play Exy, not have opinions or hobbies or friends. 

 

“Look at me,” says Riko softly. Kevin looks up, at Riko’s quiet eyes. 

 

Riko leans close, too close. So close Kevin can see tears clinging to his eyelashes. He’s about to look away when Riko crushes him into a kiss.

 

It’s bruisingly gentle, barely a brush of lips, but Kevin feels dizzy all the same. Riko lurches away from him, too fast, and Kevin blinks.

 

Riko mouths something that Kevin reads as  _ I'm sorry. _

 

Kevin can't seem to find his voice, the sensation of Riko’s mouth on his own still lingering. By the time he can form coherent thoughts again, Riko has already left the room. Kevin doesn't go looking for him. If Riko wants to be alone, no one can find him.

 

The Raven’s Nest doesn't wait up for stragglers. Their lives go on, even though Kevin had felt like his heart had stopped when Riko kissed him. Kevin finds himself watching Riko too much— looking for a crack in his perfect, smooth mask? Or maybe he just likes looking at Riko’s face, since he knows it better than his own. 

 

He thinks he could push his scattered thoughts back together, forget the burn of Riko’s mouth on his. Most of Kevin’s memories are confusing and blurred, especially since most days Exy is the only thing he remembers, but Riko’s kiss refuses to fade into the backdrop of his thoughts. He throws himself back into Exy single-mindedly. Exy and Riko; the two things he can rely on, and one of them is unpredictable and impossible to read. 

 

Weeks later, and they're arguing. Riko’s convinced, somehow, that Kevin stepped on his foot at practise, but Kevin is always hyper-aware of his body in an Exy game— how could he have  _ accidentally  _ stepped on Riko? And no Raven is stupid or suicidal enough to do it on purpose. But then… could he? Riko seems so convinced— the heat of the moment, a brutal stick check and a quick side pass— did he? Could he have stepped on Riko by accident? 

 

“Really?  _ Really,  _ Kevin? You don't think I remember, do you? Oh, but I  _ do.  _ I remember when you said I drag my feet when I'm tired right after evening practice. Don't you? And now you think you can  _ exploit _ something I  _ can't control? _ ” 

 

“I didn't say that! I never said you drag your feet!” Kevin insists. How stupid did Riko think he was? “You— that was—”

 

Kevin stops suddenly, remembering overhearing the Master shouting at Riko a week ago, after evening practice. It had been in Japanese, so Kevin had tried not to listen in, but he'd said something like  _ are you a slug or a raven? If I ever see you drag your feet on the court again we will see how well you can play without your feet.  _

 

“That was the Master,” says Kevin hesitantly. 

 

“Yes,” snaps Riko, “and he said— he said—”

 

Riko breaks off suddenly, narrowing his eyes. “He said…” he trailed off.”... that  _ you _ said I dragged my feet, that even you could see my mistakes and I thought… I

I thought I remembered it— you, in the locker room and… “

 

Riko was silent for too long before he finally spoke again. “It felt like a real memory when he mentioned it.“

 

The similarity to Kevin’s own memories is painful. Riko tears into him for something he doesn't remember, but he barely remembers anything— was it a real memory at all, even now that he's reconstructed the scene in his mind? 

 

_ You scuffed dirt into my face to sabotage me.  _ Kevin didn't remember it until Riko told him it had happened.  _ You were late yesterday. I had to do extra laps around the court to make up for you.  _ Had he been late at all? Kevin accepted that he might have taken a bit too long coming back from lunch just once— maybe he'd gotten there late or he'd been held up by crowds.  _ You took my gear. You spit on me. You pushed me.  _

 

_ You told me I drag my feet when I'm tired.  _

 

Riko’s silence is as close to an apology as he'll get, and the fact that he's not denying it means more to him than a  _ sorry _ ever could. 

 

“Hey,” murmurs Kevin. He doesn’t bother with  _ I forgive you _ or  _ it’s alright _ because Riko will know he doesn’t mean it. Wordlessly, Riko reaches over and lets his fingers brush a new bruise on Kevin’s cheek, the exact shape of his fist.

 

On an impulse, Kevin leans close. Riko’s breathing is evening out, slower, and Kevin wonders why he ever thought he could forget the lines of Riko’s lips when they press against his. Kevin relaxes under Riko’s gentle touch and lets Riko take him apart. 

 

***

 

“I miss it,” finishes Kevin quietly. As if Riko might reply and tell him  _ of course you should.  _ But Riko is still and silent, the only noise a soft beeping coming from the machines he's plugged into. 

 

Kevin watches him sleep, like he used to, and marvels at how, without a perpetual half-sneer etched onto his face, Riko doesn't look anything like the monster who broke Kevin into pieces. It's too easy to pretend that Riko, the boy, and Riko, the monster, were two separate entities. Two ends that don't meet. But Riko has always been one beautiful, terrible disaster of a person— he could kiss Kevin until he forgot his own name and then watch Kevin’s blood dripping from the edge of his favorite switchblade in the same day. 

  
The Foxes don't question where he disappears off to all the time. They see him for what he is, but they can never see  _ through _ him the way Riko used to. They don't ask because they don't need to know. Riko never asked because he always knew. 


	2. darkness there, and nothing more

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so i may have cheated a little in that i actually have the vast majority of this fic already written- i just didn't post it until today. expect frequent updates until i run out of content and actually have to keep writing

The year is ending and finals loom on the horizon, so Kevin’s taken to bringing his studying to the hospital and revising with Riko. They used to take the same courses in Edgar Allan— Riko let Kevin choose everything because both of them knew it didn't matter what they studied. Both of them were signed to US Court and national teams— they were set for life. Kevin wonders briefly if Riko had planned on being team captain of all three teams he was on, and what that would leave Kevin as. 

 

But for once, he doesn't want to think about Exy. Exy is the sport that caused this whole mess in the first place. It hurts to think about, but Kevin knows that if Exy never existed, Riko would have been executed quietly as an infant and Kevin would have grown up as an ordinary Welsh kid. There are few memories of his childhood that aren't intrinsically connected with Exy, and he holds onto them like lifelines. 

 

***

 

“C'mon,” Riko hisses. 

He leads Kevin around the main building, through gaps Kevin almost isn't small enough to fit into, and climbs up over a fence. What’s more surprising than sneaking out was the fact that there’s a stretch of fence that isn't topped with coils of barbed wire in the Raven’s Nest, even if it’s just barely a yard long connecting the ends of two buildings

 

Kevin follows Riko out, trailing him as he cuts across the campus at a brisk pace and leaves out of a side gate.

 

Riko’s wearing his Raven varsity jacket, but that could be for any of the Edgar Allan collegiate sports. He supposed they look about old enough to pass for college students, especially in the gloom of evening where it might be harder to recognize their faces. The Exy Ravens are only ever given black and red clothes to wear, branding them to the rest of the university. It makes sense— it’s Tetsuji’s mark of claim, of protection. It screams  _ don't touch, _ it tells everyone that these are the athletes that give their school fame. Edgar Allan is a young and largely unremarkable school, or it would be if not for the Ravens. 

 

It’s about dinnertime for students who have late classes, so there’s enough hubbub around that no one spares them a second glance. They might be two of Edgar Allan’s less successful collegiate athletes, wearing those colors— there’s a Class III football team, and a Class III basketball team, too. Everyone knows Ravens aren't allowed out of Castle Evermore outside of their lessons.

 

Riko stops at a truck and talks to the driver— it takes Kevin a second to realise it’s an ice-cream truck. He turns to face Kevin and to his surprise, he hands him an ice-cream cone.

 

“I've never had ice-cream,” he said quietly. 

 

“I think you'd hate it. It's unhealthy and sickly sweet.”

 

“So why do you eat it? Especially if—”

 

“The sugar gives you a buzz. Try it, you'll see.”

 

Riko was right. He did hate it— the cold burns his tongue and it’s so sweet he feels like retching at times. But Riko finishes his, so Kevin does, too. 

 

“That’s fifteen extra minutes of laps tomorrow before practice. That's how many calories you just consumed,” Riko comments

 

There it is. The snap back to reality— the bitter reminder that no matter how far they run from the court they will never be far from Exy. Their whole lives are lived in terms of Exy. Without it, they are nothing. 

 

Riko sets off at a brisk pace around the street. Kevin feels a little disoriented by the expansive streets. Every time he goes outside where he can see the sky, he feels a little lost.

 

Riko feels it, too. His hand finds Kevin’s and he holds him steady by that one bit of contact. 

It's late when they return and Kevin feels utterly drained from venturing so far out of Castle Evermore, but they go back the next time and the next after that. It's like stealing moments out of a stranger’s life— Riko and Kevin become two ordinary students eating junk food and wandering the streets of downtown Virginia. He feels freed, more like a real person and not just an idea. 

 

***

 

When Kevin finishes telling his story, Riko is awake. 

 

Kevin watches him, carefully, like he's waiting for him to raise his hackles and snarl. Riko merely sits up, wincing, and returns Kevin’s gaze. 

 

“Did you hear me?” whispers Kevin.  _ Every evening, did you hear me spill my soul open for you?  _

 

Riko makes a strange half-shrug, half-shake of his head, and the sound of his voice jolts Kevin right to the core. 

 

“Maybe,” he rasps. A non-answer. 

 

_ He sounds the same,  _ thinks Kevin distractedly. Kevin tried so hard to forget this voice, smooth as velvet or sharp as knives,and now it's back. Easy as breathing, easy as life.

 

Suddenly, Kevin blurts, “Come to Palmetto State with me.”

 

It's an insane idea, impossible, even. Riko’s eyes merely narrow and he tilts his head. 

 

Kevin doesn't really think he'd agree, even as he wheedles and argues and pleads with him to at least  _ try.  _ Riko’s mostly silent, until he finally leans back and agrees to stay for a month and leave when the year ends. He doesn't ask why, but Kevin’s answer is already there—  _ I don't know what would happen if we were ever separated again.  _

 

So when Ichirou calls him and tells him to do as he pleases with Riko— the Moriyamas are cutting away their last ties to Exy and Riko will never really be one of them— Kevin’s next call is to Coach Wymack (who he still doesn't really think of as his  _ father _ , despite being pretty much the only real father figure he's ever had in his life). 

 

Coach doesn't ask why he's never told anyone that Riko was alive, and he doesn't ask why he wants to bring him to Palmetto State. For that, he's thankful. But Coach does warn him that the Foxes won't stand for it, which Kevin already knows but is still disquieted to hear. “I'll deal with them,” he promises, though he doesn't think he can. 

Coach offers to be the one to tell them, but as tempting as the idea is, once Kevin brings Riko to Palmetto State he's going to be his problem, so he declines and then wonders how the hell he's going to tell them.  _ Hi, the psychopath who killed Seth and terrorized Neil all year who I might be a little in love with actually didn't die and I'm bringing him to Palmetto State. Hope you guys don't mind. _

 

Eventually, coward that he is, he sends a group text. It takes him several tries to put what he's trying to say into words, but in the end he decides to keep his message short and end it by asking them not to ask any questions. An easy, lazy way out that is bound to bite him in the ass later, but it's not like Kevin is known for making good decisions anyways. 

 

He's more and more convinced of how bad of an idea this was and by the time Riko’s on the bus next to him he's almost at the point of blaming him for not refusing him. Kevin turns his phone on silent and tries not to think of the flood of texts he’s ignoring. 

 

With a jolt, Kevin remembers that Riko has only been to Palmetto State University once and only to the Foxhole Court. He wonders if he ought to offer his hand for Riko, but his hands are buried in his pockets. His hoodie is too loose to tell if they're clenched in fists or not. 

 

It's too late for anyone reasonable to be up, which means that all of the Foxes are awake and waiting for them. Kevin leads Riko in through the fire exit, not wanting to attract attention. Unfortunately, Andrew is waiting for them on the other side of the door. 

 

Predictably, he punches Riko in the face. Kevin steps back, waiting with bated breath for his reaction, but he merely steps back and walks past him. Like he can't be bothered, or he doesn't care. The knot in Kevin’s chest isn't eased, though. Riko should have at least returned the punch with a biting retort, or a glare at the very least. Kevin had never seen Riko so  _ apathetic, _ like the fight had completely gone out of him and left him empty. 

 

***

 

“Riko?” asks Kevin tentatively. He can't help but let a tone of fear creep into his voice— and for good reason. Riko’s grown into his figure, no longer the lanky, skinny boy with a sharp tongue and a rare laugh. No, he's sixteen years old now and he's grown into something Kevin is scared to describe. Words sharper than knives, icy glares, too much strength behind punches. That's the language Riko speaks in, at least until Kevin looks past the scarred armor he's built around himself and finds the lost boy who needs Kevin to hold him up. 

 

Both of them are exhausted. 

 

_ The ERC thinks Riko is holding you back, _ the Master had said. 

 

_ They want you to play against each other.  _

 

Riko’s staring down at his hands, as if he can force them to stop shaking by glaring at them. Abruptly, he shifts his stare to Kevin. 

 

Kevin had scored more goals, but at the very last second before the timer ran out Riko had tripped him with his stick to snatch the ball up and score twice— enough to win. An illegal check no matter how you spin it, but it was Riko who took the fall. His bruises look darker than usual, especially the ones around his eyes. 

 

“Get out,” says Riko quietly. Kevin turns to leave, almost grateful that he doesn't have to stay in a room positively simmering with his rage, but Riko interrupts him and says, “No. Come here.”

 

Riko doesn't look at his face, but by the time Kevin realizes he's looking at his hands Riko’s already shoved him to the floor with a boot against his head. 

 

“Know your place, number  _ two,”  _ Riko spits, and stomps on his left hand. 

 

The ear-splitting crack is followed by white-hot, burning pain. It's horrible, enough to make him roll over and throw up, but it’s not as bad as the feeling of his hand being out of shape, out of form. Kevin lies there for hours, maybe, breathing shallowly and mostly in shock. His scattered thoughts keep looping back to Riko and then to his throbbing hand, and finally, to that ever-present entity in their lives: Exy. 

 

There's a thought— one he refuses to give words to, make real, but it comes to him anyway. 

 

_ How will I ever play again? _

 

At some point he's being lifted onto a soft surface and his hand throbs even more as someone wraps it up with none of the gentleness of Riko’s touch. His eyes half-open enough for him to see the Master leave.

 

A bloodcurdling scream pierces through the door, slicing right through Kevin’s muddled thoughts. It sends a sick chill down his spine— he swears he recognizes that voice, but it  _ can't  _ be. Riko doesn't scream when the Master hurts him, not since they were very little. He tries to get up to investigate— how badly did the Master hurt Riko if he  _ screamed?—  _ but he can't find the strength to even sit up at the moment. 

 

Kevin lies there, listening to muffled commotion outside through the closed door. Riko hates having the door locked but also thinks it's necessary— if being trapped is required to feel safe in his own home, then so be it. 

 

The pain in his hand fades to a dull ache after a long while, so Kevin gets up with difficulty and finds that he’s inside his bedroom, which means the commotion is coming from the living room. Which means it's either Riko or the Master.

 

The image that greets Kevin when he pushes the door open is enough to make him recoil in horror.

 

Riko is lying curled up on the floor. Bruises the shape of the Master’s cane bloom across his skin— expected. Riko hurt Kevin. If Kevin never plays again, then—

 

No. Kevin refuses to think of that. Riko takes the fall for damaging a Moriyama asset. That makes sense. What  _ doesn't  _ make sense is the pool of blood he's lying in and the sick wheezing noise he's making. Blood bubbles out in thick streams from his nose and mouth as he coughs. He doesn't appear to be completely conscious. 

 

Kevin realizes with a sick lurch that Riko’s suffocating. He can't breathe because there's blood in his airways. Unsteadily Kevin stumbles forwards and drags him into a sitting position, leaving bloody marks on the floor. 

 

Briefly, Kevin wonders why he doesn't feel some sort of vindictive pleasure at seeing Riko finally brought low. This is what he wanted, isn't it? But seeing Riko choking on his own blood only increases the nausea flooding his senses. 

 

Now that he's sitting up, Riko coughs again and a stream of blood dribbles out of his mouth with a gurgling noise. He really does look like a monster now, face framed in blood and eyes half-closed. _God,_  Kevin thinks, _there's so much blood._ It's everywhere, slicking Riko's hair to his face and spattered across his front. More blood spews out of his mouth before he finally draws a real, rattling breath, but Kevin doesn't stick around to see it. 

 

Before he knows it, he's running, cradling his left hand to his chest. With some difficulty he climbs up the wire fence and hits the ground running. The city makes him think of Riko so he runs faster, looking past city lights burning his eyes and crowds of starers. Castle Evermore is a shrinking dot in the distance and Kevin does not look back. 


	3. on this home by horror haunted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> changelog 9/26/18: in chapter one riko's age has been changed from 19 to 17, this is a minor plot point later on. some spelling errors have been corrected in both chapters.  
> sorry about weird chapter lengths/spacing i wrote the whole thing as one extremely long unbroken document and i tried to pick places where it makes sense to end and start chapters but the way i tell this story means it doesn't really matter too much? i suggest you read this fic with "show all chapters" on.

“What the fuck is this, Kevin?” snaps Allison. It doesn't sound much like she wants to hear an answer, so Kevin stays silent and lets Matt take his turn at chewing him out. 

 

“Is this some fucked up sort of Stockholm Syndrome, or what? You couldn't have left him in Virginia, at the very least?” 

 

“Why didn't you tell us he was alive? I would have put another bullet in his head myself,” adds Aaron in a rare show of aggression. 

 

The rest of them are staring at Riko, except for Andrew. He's looking down at a knife he's busy polishing, letting the threat hang in the air before them. 

 

Riko himself is sitting in the most Raven pose ever— left leg crossed over right, elbow on table with his hand under his chin. His glance towards Kevin is carefully neutral. 

 

Even Renee says nothing, flicking her calm gaze over him. 

 

“It's just for a month,” Kevin says. “So he doesn't have to go back to the Raven’s Nest immediately.”

 

“Then leave him in hospital!” says Nicky incredulously. 

 

Kevin merely waits for the Foxes to quieten down— no small feat, since they're quite happy to carry on the discussion alone, but at some point they all collectively realise that the conversation isn't going anywhere without Kevin’s contribution.

 

“Kevin?” asks Renee calmly. The first civil words said to him today, but it somehow makes him feel worse. People take too much effort— it's so much easier to maintain his own side of a shouting match than a polite discussion. 

 

“Why did you bring Riko here?” she says evenly. 

 

“Because,” said Kevin, “I can't let him back in the Raven’s Nest. Not… not so soon, at least. And,” he adds, ”Jean told you, didn't he? About what it's like there. It's… yeah.” he trails off awkwardly. The Foxes are silent, but not for long.

 

“If I recall correctly,” says Andrew,  _ finally, _ “most of what makes Castle Evermore the shithole that it is is you.” He points his knife to Riko, as if everyone doesn't already know who he's talking to. 

 

Kevin imagines what the Foxes are thinking— of Neil covered in stitches from head to toe and wrapped in bandages, of Kevin’s breakdown the first night he came to the Foxes with a broken hand and broken heart, of Neil telling them Riko set Andrew up that night on Thanksgiving. Renee is perhaps thinking of Jean bruised purple and bleeding out, still refusing to leave the Raven’s Nest. 

 

Kevin is thinking of Riko, too, but he's not quite sure how. 

 

“What's wrong?” jeers Aaron. “Cat got the Raven’s tongue?”

 

Riko tilts his head a little, shifting his long hair out of the way and exposing the angry scars running around his neck. Some of the Foxes flinch, but most of them have seen enough scars that they're not fazed. “I'm sorry,” he says, with a tone of mocking politeness, “were you talking to me?” He looks thoroughly bored. 

 

He doesn't wait for any response. “Kev, are we done here? I should be practicing. I need to make up for a month’s worth of lost practice.”

 

_ Kev. _ Riko hasn't called him that for a long time. It's just a nickname, but it speaks volumes to him. It's an admission of trust. In front of the Foxes, it's a stake of claim on Kevin. 

 

In silence Kevin hands Riko a spare set of Exy uniform he's dug up from the storeroom, secretly wondering what Riko will look like wearing orange and white. There's no keeping Riko away from Exy, even with a broken arm. Kevin had thought he was about to go insane when he couldn't play with his left hand, like there was a hole in his chest where his heart, Exy, had been ripped out. Learning to play with his right hand was like staunching the bleeding, but it didn't fix the problem that a fundamental part of what made Kevin himself was missing. 

 

In the changing room, the usual chatter gives way to stiff silence— no one is openly staring, but everyone is looking at Riko as he tugs off his clothes. At his scars. 

 

Riko seems not to care— of course not. The Ravens lose their identity when they join the team and there is no modesty when you have nothing to hide. Kevin knows these scars better than he knows himself. Most of them are white lines running down his skin interspersed with stitches, but there are parts of skin that are puckered from burns and paler than the surrounding area from being ripped to shreds over and over again and forced to regrow. 

 

That was a good descriptor for Riko in general:  _ ripped to shreds over and over again and forced to regrow.  _

 

Wearing the Foxes colors makes Riko look less pale and washed out, but it’s so out of place that Kevin keeps squinting at him to make sure it's real. 

 

Practice that day isn't so much practice as it is the Foxes watching Kevin and Riko go through drills. Riko seems to have taken it as a personal offense that he's not good at Exy left-handed and plays like it's a real game, sprinting and firing off shots with as much power as he can muster with his weaker hand.

 

Kevin doesn't want to admit how much he's missed playing with Riko at his side. They have a synergy that he'll never have with Neil, no matter how much communication or understanding there is between them. Riko and Exy are intrinsically connected, and without Riko Exy just isn't the same to Kevin. Riko’s left-handed passes are sloppy and not as strong as they ought to be, but Kevin races across the court to catch every shot and fling the ball back to him. If there's something Riko wants out of a game other than victory, it's a challenge, which he is probably physically incapable of backing down from. 

 

Even left-handed with his right arm in a sling, Riko is better than most of the Foxes could ever hope to be. Still, he looks distinctly annoyed at his poor performance. Kevin wishes he could tell him  _ it's okay, you'll get better, and when your right arm is out of the cast you'll be the best player in the world again,  _ but Riko isn't interested in hearing things he already knows to be true.

 

***

 

The first thing Kevin thinks after he can breathe again is that Riko’s grown out his hair. From the moment the Raven fight song had started playing, an ever-present echo in the back of his mind, and Kathy Ferdinand had introduced Riko like a new chess piece in a game she doesn’t know how to play, he’s had his mind stuck on Riko. Again.

 

Riko corners him and Kevin unfreezes.

 

His hair goes down now, almost to his shoulders. They used to have matching haircuts, but Kevin doesn’t like the idea of letting anyone else put sharp cutting implements near his face, so he let it grow out until it got into his eyes. Then he'd taken a pair of scissors to it and hacked off as much as he could reach.

 

Riko’s hair is meticulously groomed, as usual, but when he tilts his head back to look up at Kevin it shifts out of the way, exposing skin that Kevin knows has been pasted over with makeup. To conceal scars. 

 

“I don't think I need to tell you that this is the latest in a long series of mistakes you've made since— since you left,” growls Riko. “Come home, Kevin.”

 

“What happened to your neck?” he asks instead of answering. 

 

Riko’s laugh is bitter. “As if you need to ask. There are only three people in this world who are allowed to hurt me.”

 

“The Master, and yourself, but… who’s the third?”

 

“Oh, Kevin. My sweet little songbird. Ever ignorant. But that doesn't matter right now. What does matter is that you're not at Castle Evermore right now.”

 

“You know I can't go back, Riko.”

 

“No, I  _ don't  _ know _ ,”  _ he says vehemently. “So do explain to me. I'd love to know why my Raven has decided to rip his feathers out and play at being a fox.”

 

Riko talking in riddles is never a good sign. It means Tetsuji has him on new medication in a renewed attempt to keep his temper on a leash.

 

“If anyone ripped my feathers out, it was you.” he says quietly. 

 

Kevin finally lets his gaze drift to Riko’s face. The medication has loosened his permanent scowl a little, and the lines of his sharp face are still as familiar as life to him. And perhaps it's his imagination after months of not seeing this face, but do his cheeks look hollower than they were? Is his already razor-sharp jawline even more pronounced? Are the ever-present shadows under his eyes darker, despite the makeup caked onto them?

 

“This isn't about me, Kevin.” 

 

But Kevin knows that it is. It was too long ago for him to remember that he realized and accepted that he was not the hero of his own story. He was a side character to Riko.

 

“Your hand,” notes Kevin. Riko’s left hand is hiding something poorly concealed by makeup that can't cover new scabs no matter how much is used. They run in lines down his fingers and trace where his slender, birdlike bones are, but most chilling is a line running down his hand. Exactly the same as the one on Kevin’s left hand. 

 

Riko yanks him close by his shirt, murder in his eyes. Desperately Kevin looks down to his face— religiously, almost, to see his lovely, cruel face. The manic smile is gone now, replaced by something brutal and honest and leaving his delicate lips slightly parted. Almost like a child’s pout. Right as an insane, unsolicited thought crosses Kevin’s mind—  _ kiss him—  _ he's pulled back by a rough hand in his collar. 

 

Andrew is grinning savagely at Riko, who clenches his fist but does not otherwise move. Kevin flinched when his fist clenches so hard that the scabs split and begin to bleed anew. 

 

“You know already who did this, Kevin. You know me better than I know myself,” he snarls before stalking away. Kevin watches his small figure as it leaves and tries to breathe. 

  
  


***

 

Exy consumes Riko. In a way, it's better for Kevin because he understands Exy. It's a language he speaks. It's much easier than watching Riko’s pale face, looking as if he is carved from marble, and trying to read what it's saying. But it leaves Kevin worried. 

 

Riko plays violently and with a ferocity Kevin doesn’t think anyone else could bring to a court. The Foxes hate it. They hate his barely-legal body-checks, how he favors stick-checking when a simple maneuver would do the trick, how he barely seems to be playing on a good day and more trying to start a fight. They don't take well to how he singles out Neil and Andrew with his more dangerous checks, or how he plays like he doesn't care about anything except for the ball and his stick. Riko is willing to drop to the floor with a sickening  _ thud _ or slide on his knees until the skin is peeling off if it means he can gain possession, and he doesn't let go of the stick no matter how hard it's twisting his arm. This is not the Riko that Kevin has seen play before. This is a new type of dangerous, a bomb going off and leaving shrapnel in the whole court without regard for what it does to himself. 

 

The first time they play a scrimmage, with one player of each position on each side since the Foxes don't have enough for a full game, it's like the Foxes aren't even trying to pretend to play a fair game. On Riko’s side are Nicky, Dan and Renee. On Kevin’s side, Matt, Allison and inevitably, Andrew. Neil and Aaron are watching from outside the court walls.

 

Coach seems to have tried to put players who might be less openly hostile towards Riko but his efforts have been wasted. For most of the game, Dan and Nicky stand in their positions idly and let balls fly past them. Riko runs back and forth, playing every position alone, and Kevin feels too guilty to actively play against him. Soon, however, Dan and Nicky seem to be actively playing against Riko, passing to Kevin’s side and blocking Riko. 

 

Kevin moves to stand by Renee in the goal and watch. 

 

Like a small whirl of feathers, Riko sprints like his life depends on it and gets one, two,  _ three  _ goals past Andrew. He's made more than thirty shots on goal, so it's not brilliant, but between playing left-handed and playing alone against a full defensive side with Andrew in goal, it's more than Kevin could probably have done. 

 

(Of course, Kevin doesn't have Riko’s single-minded desperation and willingness to wear himself down till his bones were poking out through his skin for Exy.) 

 

Exy practice soon derails into the Foxes teaming up, for once, against the only thing that could possibly unite them: a Raven. Kevin’s displeased to find that as quiet as Riko has grown, in brief flashes he sometimes bares his fangs and lets a little of that all-consuming rage show. He hasn't lost his love of violence. 

 

Practice goes badly every day and is too tense for Kevin’s liking. It feels like a ticking time bomb waiting to go off. One day when Aaron says something to him as he walks by Riko turns and punches him in the face before shoving him into the wall. 

 

Kevin had asked Coach not to intervene because he knows Riko won't handle it well, but physically assaulting a Fox is the line he won't let Riko cross.

 

As soon as the court door opens, Riko stops in his tracks and stumbles backwards. Suddenly his fangs are retracted, claws tucked in. It doesn't take long for Kevin to see that Coach has realized what he has— Riko’s scared of him. Not just scared,  _ terrified.  _

 

By the time Wymack’s reached them and Aaron has gotten his breathe back, Riko’s positively shaking, eyes wide. Fear wafts off him in waves, and the Foxes can smell it.  _ They're closing in for the kill.  _

 

“What happened?” asks Coach gruffly. Aaron says nothing, watching Riko. 

 

Finally, Riko unclenches his jaw and speaks. Kevin almost hears a waver in his voice. 

 

“He called Kevin a— he said—”

 

Riko exhaled sharply and shook his head, either unwilling or unable to continue. His chest was heaving. 

 

“Aaron,” asks Coach, keeping an even tone, “what did you call Kevin?” 

 

Aaron looks up defiantly. “I called him a fag.”

 

The circle of Foxes shifts tangibly. Suddenly, Riko isn't enough to bind them together into a tenuous truce against a common enemy— the lines of the fight have changed. No one is looking at Riko anymore. 

 

Coach’s face betrays nothing. His voice is gruff and sharp, something that Kevin is thankful for— if his voice had been flat and emotionless, Riko would have probably collapsed then and there. The less similarities he sees between Wymack and Tetsuji, the better. 

 

“You two can come to my office. Everyone else, keep going.”

 

He takes a step towards Riko but stops when Riko flinches hard enough that he steps backwards. 

 

Kevin watches Riko square his shoulders and walk stiffly away with a sense of foreboding. 

 

The stares of the Foxes are hot against his back, but Kevin ignores them. Neil turns to him, but Kevin doesn't answer his unasked question. Or perhaps it's a show of solidarity. Honestly, Kevin has never been any good at reading intent in someone’s face from a childhood where emotion was practically nonexistent. 

 

(The only time Kevin had ever seen Riko come apart so plainly he could see it on his face had been too many days ago, his whirling, too-fast thoughts dragged to the surface by drugs. It hurt to remember him crying and laughing at the same time, shattered into a million pieces and pretending he could hold himself together and then a gunshot sharper than his razor smile—) 

 

Riko returns to practice trailing Aaron. Practice resumes with a furious vengeance— the Foxes are unforgiving and this time their wrath comes down onto Aaron. It's less clear-cut as it used to be, with Andrew deigning not to participate at all and Nicky and Neil attempting to play a fair game, but Aaron seems to be trying his very best to cut Riko’s legs off. Riko dodges his shots easily, small as he is, but it's wearing him down quickly. 

 

It's only a matter of time before it escalates into a full-blown fight. Riko throws the first punch this time, but Coach lets them fight it out. The brawl doesn't end until Andrew stalks over and raises his racquet; it’s unclear who he's aiming for, but both of them back off. 

 

Kevin’s not supposed to be on the court, since it's Neil’s turn, but he disregards every rule he's been taught the moment he sees Riko swaying on his feet after the scrimmage has ended. Like a bird in a hurricane, snatched away by wind. 

 

He shoves the court door open with an ear-splitting  _ bang _ and barely reaches Riko in time to see his eyes roll upwards in his head before he collapses. 

 

A feeling like being stabbed hits his chest when Kevin lifts Riko’s delicate frame in his arms too easily. He's light as a bundle of little black feathers, as if his bones really are hollow. He doesn't need to look under Riko’s shirt to know that his ribs are poking out from underneath near-translucent skin. 

 

In the spare dorm they've been borrowing, Riko comes to slowly, wrapped in blankets. 

 

“Oh,” he croaks. “Again?” 

 

“Yeah,” affirms Kevin. The last time Riko passed out on the court was when he was sixteen. Tetsuji ended up plugging him into an IV and force-feeding him to make him look less like a bag of bones with skin stretched over. 

 

Kevin had asked  _ why  _ even though he knew the answer. Riko knew that he knew, but he said anyways  _ because I just want to feel like a real person.  _

 

He supposed it hadn't worked, starving himself and eating even less than barely nothing every day. Kevin also wondered if it was a form of personal spite or defiance against Tetsuji, that no matter how much he wanted Riko to be that perfect, handsome, charismatic Raven King, Riko could always defy him. He could be the best striker in the world, or he could pass out on the court. He could be strong enough to lift Kevin into his arms and kiss him despite being several inches shorter, or he could eat nothing for two days straight and throw up the moment Tetsuji tried to force-feed him.

 

It made Kevin wonder why people wanted to be like that. Why they weighed themselves and then said  _ I wish I had enough self control to be anorexic.  _ People who wished they could faint and wait for their knight in shining armor to lift them up in strong arms and kiss them better, tell them  _ you're beautiful the way you are.  _ Kevin knew better. He knew it was more like begging Riko to eat because he was scared he wasn't going to wake up if he fell asleep the next day, and Riko finally relenting and then Kevin feeling horrible and guilty for forcing him to eat not for himself, but for Kevin. It was holding his hair back while he puked into the toilet. It was walking off court with his arm wrapped around Riko and trying not to make it look like Riko was leaning on him in front of cameras broadcasting across the world. It was covering for him when he couldn't stand up and Tetsuji came calling. It was trying desperately to staunch bleeding as fast as he could because Riko couldn't afford to lose any blood in the state he was in. It was pulling all-nighters to do his homework for him because he'd collapsed into bed the moment he'd entered the dorm. It was wondering why Riko was still shivering as his ice-cold skin touched Kevin’s even as they lay in bed together wrapped in all the spare blankets they could find.

 

Riko shifts slightly and Kevin knows what he's asking for. He reaches up to the top shelf that he hasn't touched for two years since he put it there and pulls out a black and red Raven varsity jacket. The top shelf is where he left all his Raven-issued clothing, that he didn't want to look at but couldn't bear to throw out. He swears some of them still smell like Riko.

 

(He loved stealing Kevin's jackets, because he was constantly cold from being an inch away from skeletal most of the time.)

 

“What did Coach Wymack say to you?” ventures Kevin cautiously. 

 

“Just that he doesn’t want problems from off the court to interfere with what happens on the court. He told me to sort it out in my own time.”

 

Kevin wonders what off-court  _problem_ Coach is referring to, since Aaron's personal vendetta against Riko is shared by all the Foxes. Logically he thinks it might be his relationship with Riko, but that also doesn't make sense. It's not a  _problem,_ is it?

 

Riko pauses. “And then he said he would never hit me, no matter what I did, because that’s not the way things work around here.”

 

“And do you believe him?” 

 

“I believe you,” says Riko. “You told me no one would hurt me here.”

 

Kevin winces slightly. “I didn't realize how… aggressive the Foxes would be.”

 

Riko draws himself straighter and his voice took on a bit of that old haughtiness Kevin remembered. “I can take care of myself against some mangy wash-outs. They're not old enough to be— to be… yeah,” he ends awkwardly.

 

_ They're not old enough to be the Master. _

 


	4. long i stood there wondering, fearing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am so so sorry for not updating, i was abroad and didn't have my laptop. here's a long-ass chapter to make up for it.  
> also, i've changed my username from paigetico to kybcr, to fit with my twitter, one of my tumblrs (kvber), wattpad and deviantart, so don't be alarmed it's still me
> 
> changelog 10/15/18: minor grammar fixes bc i'm a dumbass who doesn't check over my work

Kevin stumbles into the bathroom, nauseous. The whiskey burned down his throat barely fifteen minutes ago and now it’s sour in his gut. The alcohol leaves everything in a gentle haze but it's not enough to hide Riko’s sharp edges. 

 

He'd barely processed half of what Neil had said to Riko—  _ endless daddy issues, world doesn't revolve around you, pity only gets you so many concessions—  _ but he wants to be anywhere but at the fall banquet right now. He doesn't want to go back to Palmetto State, either, but then the only other place where he belongs is Edgar Allan and that's probably the last place he wants to be, too. At least, that’s what he’s telling himself.

 

He shouldn't be surprised to find Riko in the bathroom too, with a white-knuckled grip on a sink. He looks as sick as Kevin feels, but he's thankful that there's no blood slicked on the white tiling. 

 

“Stop it,” Riko snaps suddenly, startling him. “Stop this… this  _ charade.  _ You're a Raven, nothing more and nothing less. Come home, Kevin.”

 

“It's not my home anymore,” he says quietly. 

 

“As if you can sleep at night in a room that's not painted black and red? As if you can walk to class and not feel exposed without me at your side? As if you don't turn to me to say something and then realize I'm not there?” responds Riko raggedly. “You're missing half of you, Kevin. I'm missing half of me. All you have to do is  _ come home.” _

 

“I can't,” he insists. It feels like a lie. “It stopped being my home the moment you broke my hand.”

 

Riko doesn't look up and shakes his head. “I don't get it. I don't understand how you can even function without your partner. This isn't how Ravens are supposed to live, alone. We're number one and two. I can't even— do you know how many times I come so close to fucking  _ giving up,  _ because I forget that you aren't here to put the pieces back together after I've taken myself apart? How can you even breathe, surrounded by your rabid guard dogs and—”

 

Riko breaks off suddenly. The air shifts between them. 

 

“You… you replaced me,” he whispers. “Your precious Foxes. Especially the psychotic blond one. You… oh, Kevin. Always finding ways to one-up me. Trust you to be the one who finally wins. The one who gets out of this fucking mess alive. The one who finds a way to live like you could ever be a normal person. You swapped me out like the Master swaps his players out after half-time.”

 

It wasn't true, but then it was. 

 

Andrew sticks by his side unwaveringly, refusing to let him out of his line of sight, and Kevin hadn't realized that most people don't do that with their friends, no matter how close. And he had never asked why. Come to think of it, Kevin isn't sure why he ever thought Andrew could protect him from anything when most of the monsters waiting to pounce are inside his head. Maybe he just needs someone who will never leave him, never hurt him the way Riko had but stick with him the way Riko would. 

 

It’s not enough.

 

Riko’s laugh is humorless and cold and it hurts to hear. “God, Kevin. I have to stop underestimating you. You've got some fucking nerve, you know? Running away like that. I wish I had even half of your guts.”

 

Kevin finally speaks, letting the words flow past him because he’s not sure if he means them or not. “It wasn't bravery. It was cowardice. If I was really brave I would have stayed.”

 

“Oh, Kev. You're a shit liar. You're ten times the person I am. You are the living, breathing reminder of every mistake I make.”

 

Riko’s eyes are squeezed shut. Kevin wonders what he sees behind his eyelids.

 

“Get out of my sight before I fucking stab one of us,” Riko half-laughs, half-snarls, and Kevin turns to leave.

 

***

 

Coach Wymack recognizes that nothing can keep Riko off an Exy court, not even straight up passing out. It does seem like he's asked the Foxes to take it down a notch, but Riko doesn't relent in wearing them all down to the bone. It doesn't get better after his broken arm is finally out of the cast. 

 

Riko marches onto court, stick in his right hand. To Kevin’s surprise, he's on the Away side, instead of the Home side that he usually takes. He looks pointedly at Kevin, then at the other side of the court. 

 

It hits him like a stone. “What— no, Riko, I—” he sputters. “At least give it a few days? Your arm just came out of the cast…”

 

“No. It has to be today. Just you and me. There's a question that I need answered. Don't hold back this time,” asserts Riko. 

 

No one else on the court, just Riko and Kevin on opposite sides. The last time this happened, Kevin’s hand was crushed under a boot. 

 

The last time this happened, Riko had won. 

 

This time, he doesn't. 

 

It's close— Kevin’s only won by one point. A collective bated breath is exhaled— the Foxes are watching from outside the court. Out of instinct Kevin looks to Riko, and his expression is unreadable. 

 

“Oh,” he remarks, looking up at the scoreboard. He doesn't sound  _ disappointed,  _ exactly, but perhaps more resigned. A god cast down from his crumbling throne. 

 

Both of them know Riko should be better than Kevin, that if Riko was eating enough instead of on the verge of passing out cold and had more practice with his newly-healed arm then he would have left Kevin in the dust, but neither of them are willing to go there. Not with what had happened the last time they’d been evenly matched.

 

Riko shrugs and walks off the court, twirling his stick. He goes up to Coach Wymack and says something, but they're too far away for Kevin to hear. In any case, Kevin is too busy watching Riko as if any moment he's going to either collapse or burst out, but he looks uncharacteristically non-expressive. Even in front of Wymack, his mask doesn't slip. Kevin waits for the glass to shatter or implode, but it never does. His marble statue doesn't break.

 

Later Kevin finds out what he said to Coach. Riko’s been absent for some time at the end of the day and Kevin’s just wondering if he ought to go to evening practice without him when he walks into their borrowed dorm. His presence precedes him. 

 

Immediately what draws his eye is the tattoo on his cheek— it's no longer the number one. 

 

“Victory,” reads Kevin aloud. His Japanese is a little rusty, but he's pretty sure of it. 

 

Riko nods, then replies in Japanese again, “There's no meaning in first place if you're the only one in the race. Victory, however… “

 

Victory is hard to quantify but easy to identify. You always know if you've won, even if the victory is personal and not a mark on the scoreboard.

 

The kanji is stark black against his pale skin. It's unfamiliar, but Kevin hopes he can get used to it the same way he used to stare at his face in the mirror as if he could will away the number two. After he'd gotten the chess queen he'd stared at it every day to make sure it was real. 

 

_ The race is over,  _ thinks Kevin. Riko’s Perfect Court had fallen apart.  _ But who won?  _

 

***

 

The Christmas banquet was, in hindsight, a terrible mistake. He shouldn't have been surprised when Neil punched Riko, then when he'd told them Riko set Andrew up. Then Jean had handed him a flight itenary, expression stone cold, and said  _ it's not for you.  _

 

Kevin feels sick. 

 

Naturally, Riko has to be in the bathroom too. He’s bent almost double over a toilet, retching. Out of habit Kevin crosses the room in two long strides and reaches over to pull his long hair back. 

 

Riko flinches, sending a jolt through Kevin, before he realizes who it is. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and gets up unsteadily. 

 

He slips between Kevin and the door to stand in front of the mirror. Kevin follows, looking at them together in the mirror, and wonders how they grew so apart so quickly. How easily they could fall back together.

 

“I…” Kevin tries to find his voice. “I don't care what you do to me. Break my hand, hurt me, kill me, whatever. But stay away from the Foxes,” he finishes. It feels laughably weak, like he doesn't really mean the words. Maybe he doesn't.

 

“How noble,” notes Riko. “Willing to sacrifice yourself for those Foxes? See, even now, the Foxes are  _ them  _ and not  _ us _ when you talk about them, yet you're… threatening me, is it? Where was this remarkable sense of duty two months ago when I asked you to come home?”

 

His voice is quiet, but his words bite sharper than they would if they had been shouted. 

 

“What do you want with Neil?” asks Kevin instead. 

 

“Nathaniel? Oh, just a little bit of fun. The Master will have me executed at some point, probably when Nathan Wesninski gets out of jail so he can have the Butcher clean up the mess I made. I might as well have my fun first. Even better that it's with my executioner’s son. You know, with red hair I bet he would be his father's splitting image. I used to have nightmares about the Butcher, that my father had finally decided I wasn't useful enough and sent him to execute me.”  Riko says bitterly in one breath. 

 

“Why would he have you killed?” 

 

Riko narrows his eyes at him in the mirror. “This entire mess is my fault. At this point I'm more of a liability than an asset. You could…”

 

He hesitates, voice breaking off for a moment, then continues. “You could save me, you know. If you came home and I undid a little of the damage I did.”

 

Curiously, he doesn't say that Kevin could save the Foxes from Riko if he went back to Edgar Allan, but Kevin supposes that it's a given. Riko has no interest in the Foxes when Kevin isn't attached to him. If he cuts away those threads Riko will leave them alone. 

 

(And Riko grew up knowing the little world he was in revolved around him and Kevin. Anyone else was an afterthought— it was selfishness trained into him, not something he was born with.) 

 

Kevin finds himself shaking his head, all the same. Riko in the mirror closes his eyes, like he knew it was coming. 

 

“Then,” whispers Riko, “when you hear the news of a tragic accident, the death of the Exy King, maybe on the morning news, you'll know that it was your fault. That you could have stopped it if you just came home. You'll know that you killed me. Perhaps your precious French bird will call you first. You could hold a party together.”

 

A pang of guilt hits Kevin when he remembers Jean. Jean, who he abandoned when he ran, Jean who had always stood by him and been there, Jean who would have been left to pay the price for Kevin’s cowardice at Riko’s hands. 

 

“This isn't about you,” whispers Kevin. It feels false— after all, when has anything  _ not  _ been about Riko, number one, the King? But he says it again, and his conviction settles.

 

“You didn't have to come after Andrew and the others,” Kevin says. 

 

“They’re what you've replaced me with. Forgive me if I resent them a little for taking my place, especially the striker on my side of the court next to you.”

 

“That doesn't mean— you didn't have to— you realize,” says Kevin angrily, finding a little bit of his spine, “that the more you hurt them, the closer I will stick to them? You can't take me back to Edgar Allan by destroying the Foxes.”

 

Riko laughs his cold, bitter laugh again, the one that makes a chill settle deep in Kevin's bones like the smell of a storm before it comes. “You still don't get it, don't you? You’re right. It’s not about me. And this is no longer about you, either. You're not coming home. I've always known that when I die, it'll either be myself, you, or my father who pulls the trigger. The only thing I'm planning on leaving behind is damage. I wonder if my father will find a way to wash away all that blood I've spilled— all the blood I'm going to spill. I am going to make sure that the Ravens are _nothing,”_ spits Riko, “without their King. If my father only remembers me as the boy who destroyed his precious Ravens and his reputation, then at least he will have to know my name.”

 

The only words sticking in Kevin’s head are  _ either myself, you or my father pulls the trigger.  _

 

“You promised me,” he rasps. 

 

Riko sighs in the mirror. How is it that he's treating this with such clinical detachment, like he's talking about the weather? His tone makes him sound nonchalant,  _bored,_ even. It makes Kevin furious. He ought to be shouting, shoving Kevin against the wall and holding a knife to his neck. Why can't Riko make it easier for Kevin to hate him? It's so hard to squint and see a monster where Kevin can only see Riko standing in its place.

 

" So I did. What exactly did I say? Two years ago, was it?” 

 

“You promised me that you would stay with me. That you wouldn't…”

 

“That I wouldn't kill myself. Right.”

 

His exact words had been  _ until we graduate from university and then… well, I suppose we'll see.  _ Hearing Riko spell it out sends a stark chill down his spine.

 

_ “ _ You promised,” Kevin repeats quietly. 

 

“I broke every single promise I ever made you. What difference does one more make?” 

 

“Keep this one promise, then.”

 

“Maybe,” muses Riko. “It'd be funny, wouldn't it, if I died and news got out that I'd committed suicide? Can you believe the press scandal? They'd have a field day, and the Master and my father would be ruined,” Riko sighs, contemplative. “Dying on my own terms rather than my father’s isn't such a bad idea. But since you asked so nicely,” he adds, ”maybe I’ll think about humoring you.”

 

It doesn’t feel like a victory, not when Riko makes it seem like he owes Kevin his life. Both of them have so many favors owed, so many promises kept and broken, that Kevin probably shouldn’t bother trying to keep track or feeling guilty.

 

For a moment they simply stand facing the mirror, so close to each other Kevin wonders if Riko can feel his breath against the red scars on his neck. 

 

(Riko smells like the cold bite of steel and and that vile cologne they always had to wear at public events. The smell makes his heart hurt. The antiseptic smell of the infirmary of Castle Evermore is there, too. Kevin hasn't been there for a long time, not since it was easier to let Riko stitch him back up in their dorm rather than entrust their delicate skin and flesh to strangers in white coats and masks.) 

 

Slowly, Riko leans back into him, closing his eyes— a tiny concession of defeat. Kevin holds him up, feeling bones poking out through his skin and and watches them together in the mirror. They still fit together so easily— the image of the pair of them together is so familiar, when he thinks about every time he felt Riko missing beside him and couldn't make himself turn around to make sure he really wasn't there.

 

In shadows cast by white lights harsher than the stare behind Riko’s closed eyelids, his skin looks almost translucent, dark shadows under his eyes. His cheeks are positively hollow, framing delicate lips that are almost blue.

 

For a flash Kevin thinks that if he looks away Riko will blow away on some breeze or burn away like mist in morning sunlight. 

 

He looks like a ghost. 

 

***

 

Andrew asks Kevin one day if he can bring Riko to Columbia with them. Even Kevin isn't  _ that  _ stupid, but though Andrew didn't ask a second time he found an alternative. His line of thinking is usually that if no one says specifically that he can't do something then he will do it. 

 

Which is how the Foxes end up crammed into the basement of Fox Tower with enough booze for an army. 

 

Unfortunately, where alcohol is concerned, Kevin has alarmingly little self-control. He promises to himself that he won't get drunk tonight, but ten minutes in his head is already feeling light. 

 

He resolves not to drink any more and instead focuses his gaze on Riko’s stony face. Sometimes Kevin wonders if the reason he never smiles like he means it is because no one taught him how to make expressions like a normal person. Once, he said  _ you taught me how to smile. It's weird, watching you. You laugh and smile so much, like you've got so much to be happy about.  _

 

_ I don't,  _ Kevin had replied.  _ I just pretend I'm happy.  _

 

_ Why?   _ Riko had puzzled. 

 

_ For other’s sake, I guess. That's why people smile a lot, outside the Nest, so no one sees they're unhappy. But there's no one to smile for now.  _

 

Riko had regarded him carefully.  _ Did your mom smile a lot?  _

 

_ Yeah.  _

 

Nicky pours a shot of whiskey and slides it across the table, not to Kevin but to Riko. “Happy birthday, asshole. You're a year closer to dying— we should celebrate.”

 

_ Of course, _ Kevin thinks. Of course Andrew's lot had planned this. They were just waiting for a chance to rip into Riko. His birthday is the perfect chance. Somehow, Kevin's managed to forget that it's Riko’s birthday— Riko probably doesn’t remember, either, since back at the Raven’s Nest birthdays held no value and days passed the same regardless. 

 

(Riko used to search his room and ask everywhere after his father— maybe there was a gift for him, a card, anything, for his birthday. But after the first few years he stopped bothering. A few years later he stopped trying to send messages up to East Tower for every occasion. Riko had them committed to memory— his father and brother’s birthdays, wedding anniversaries, dates of important Japanese holidays, the dates of his mother’s birth, marriage, death.)

 

Riko merely shrugs and picks up the glass with delicate fingers. Before Kevin can say anything he downs it in one long gulp. 

 

“Expecting me to choke on it, weren't you? Don't worry, Kevin, I don't plan on adding alcoholism to my ever-growing list of problems,” says Riko flatly. 

 

“No,” he agrees. “Alcoholism is my thing.” But Kevin still wonders. Most people can't handle a mouthful of whiskey, much less a whole glass in one go.

 

“Your birthday,” muses Aaron. “So are you old enough to drink? Would be a real pity if you got into a drunk accident. Real pity. You are twenty-one, right?”

 

“Eighteen,” corrects Riko. Shock flashes across the Foxes’ faces 

 

“The Master had him skip two years of school when I was eleven so he could be in the same class as me,” says Kevin, trying to draw away their stares. Not that either of them are affected by staring anymore- growing up under perpetual spotlights in front of cameras with microphones in your face does that to you.

 

The Foxes are probably wondering how someone who wasn't even a legal adult at the time could have done the things he did last year. But Riko’s cruelty is ageless and ever-present. He looks about a thousand years old in the body of a child, with those dark, steel-cold eyes. 

 

He's never been allowed to be a child, after all. 

 

Kevin picks up another bottle to give himself something to do and flicks the cap off with practiced ease. Time usually passes faster when he's actively trying to drown himself in bottles but Riko’s presence makes the minutes drag out. 

 

At some point Neil gets up and motions for him to follow. They move to stand behind a corner and Neil stares him down. 

 

Neil says, ”You know Riko is gaslighting you into believing he’s the victim of all this, don’t you?”

 

Thankfully, through the haze of alcohol it takes Kevin a long moment to register the words. They still hurt to hear. Unfortunately, the alcohol also means Kevin can’t bring himself to really, honestly care. 

 

Of course Riko is manipulating him. He had been for most of his life. That’s just how their relationship works— Riko hurts Kevin and then makes it seem like it was his own fault. It’s only as much as Tetsuji had taught him. The difference now is that Kevin had learned that people don't work like that outside of the Raven’s Nest, that you weren't supposed to break people to make them love you.

 

“When you were in the Raven’s Nest,” says Kevin, “do you remember what it was like? The hazing and hierarchy?”

 

“Yes,” replies Neil carefully. “What about it?” 

 

“What kind of mindset did you have by the end of winter break?” 

 

“Like…” Neil hesitates. “Like I wasn't a person. Like I had to survive, and the only way to survive was to play Exy. I didn't have time to think or feel. It was just Exy, avoid Riko, get beaten up anyways, keep playing Exy, more Exy, just all Exy and Riko. He was always there.”

 

“Right,” affirms Kevin. “You feel like the only way to get out is to play Exy and that's the only thing you're allowed to do, or else risk getting beaten. Now imagine being born into that kind of environment and having to grow up there, living like that with the mindset that Exy is the only thing you're allowed to have and that violence will be dealt out whether you like it or not. How did you survive? How did you keep going, Neil?”

 

“I did it for the Foxes,” he asserts. For Andrew, to stop Riko from hurting him. 

 

“Exactly. There was a person who kept you going. You think of him, you remember what it feels like to be a human being. He keeps you going even when you want to give up. You made him a promise and you have to keep it. You get what I'm trying to say, don't you?” 

 

“That doesn't justify Riko doing all that bullshit he did last year. He could have been raised in a slaughterhouse and it still wouldn't have been the right thing to do.”

 

“How about you, Neil?” challenges Kevin. “Your mother. She hit you, didn't she? You were on the run and children are hard to keep in control. But she saved your life, didn't she?” 

 

Even as he says it, he feels guilty for bringing it up. It's not even the same thing, Neil’s mother trying to save him and Riko trying to drag Kevin back to his side, but Kevin’s tired and he needs this conversation to end. And he's drunk and alcohol makes him feel like the kind of person he was back at Edgar Allan.

 

“My mom,” says Neil hotly, “wanted me to survive at any cost. Riko did nothing but tear you down.”

 

“But you loved her,” Kevin says. “She loved you. You can't live a life on the run with one person for ten years without loving them, without equating their presence to home. It was exactly the same in the Raven’s Nest. Riko and I weren't raised as children, we were trained and beaten and taught that our emotions don't matter. We learned to smile in front of cameras. Tetsuji hit both of us, so that was what we learned was the right way to make people learn. You can't go through absolute bullshit like that for ten years and not love the only person who saw you as a  _ real human being _ and not a  _ commodity.  _ I am not having this conversation with you. _ ”  _

 

Incensed, Kevin stalks away, blood boiling. 

 

Neil’s never heard Riko’s laugh, the one when he tries to stifle it because he's not allowed to be happy. He's never seen Riko smile, not his devil's grin or his camera smile, but the one where he ducks his head and covers his mouth so no one can see. He's never heard Riko absently humming while doing his homework, or how daintily he eats and that he doesn't like kale and that his favorite fruit is mango. He's never known Riko as a person and not the monster who tried to destroy the Foxes.

 

Riko is waiting for him, an empty seat beside him. The Foxes shoot him and Neil quizzical glances that burn against him like a swarm of spotlights.

 

Only once he's settled into the armchair with Riko does he realize how small it is— it's probably meant for one person but Riko, small as he is, fits right in the space beside Kevin. 

 

_ Puzzle pieces,  _ he thinks, and he's drunk enough that it feels funny to him and he almost laughs. Two little puzzle pieces with broken, glass-shard edges that fit together only when you shoved and sliced off parts. 

 

The rest of the night passes in a blur— dimly he registers most of the Foxes having a go at Riko, who smiles his flat, camera smile and replies with polite detachment. It really does seem like he doesn't care and Kevin might even believe it if he didn’t know better. 

 

Kevin’s jolted out of his alcohol-induced haze when someone leaves to go to the toilet and the door slams behind them. 

 

The noise is too sharp and slices right through his muddled thoughts, straight to his heart beating too fast. 

 

A door slammed.

 

Suddenly he's back at Castle Evermore and Riko’s just stormed in, slamming the door behind him with an ear-splitting noise and words spiky and bloody out of his mouth—  _ my hand, _ Kevin thinks suddenly, because it feels like it's bleeding open again— bands constricting around his chest and all the air’s gone from them. 

 

His hands are cold. 

 

Someone is saying something, as if from a great distance. It takes him moments to realize it's his name. 

 

“Kevin!” snaps Neil. 

 

He blinks, and the black walls are gone. Castle Evermore is gone. The black and red uniform and gear is gone. 

 

Riko is gone. 

 

He's standing now instead of in the seat, and Kevin feels his absence from beside him acutely. Riko’s features are schooled back into the unreadable, flat mask, the one he hates so much because he looks barely human. 

 

“Kevin?” he whispers, uncertain. 

 

“Get away from him, you sick fuck,” says someone harshly. Allison, with her own brand of aggressive goodwill. “Everyone, get out. Neil, can you deal with this?” 

 

Neil probably nods, because everyone clears out in silence, Riko included. 

 

It takes Kevin several tries to find his voice. 

 

“Don't— don't hurt him,” he rasps. No one responds, because no one is planning on giving a promise they won't keep. They probably didn't hear his scratchy whisper of a plea, anyways.

 

Someone pushes a glass of water into his shaking hands. As soon as it touches his left hand the phantom pain fades. Suddenly he regrets drinking so much whiskey, because his head is pounding a steady beat into the side of his skull.

 

_ Riko,  _ he tries to say before the name gets stuck in his throat. Riko can fix this. He’ll hold Kevin in his arms, kiss the tear tracks on his cheeks, brush his hair back from out of his eyes. He won't ask questions because Riko knows it's probably his fault. He'll stitch Kevin back up, bandage his cuts with his slender fingers, incongruently gentle.  _ We can't be late to practice,  _ he’ll say, and they'll find their way back to the court. Or maybe the city, downtown Virginia where no one sees them for what they are. Maybe they'll eat junk food and lie to themselves for a little while. 

 

“You know,” says Kevin (to no one in particular, but Neil listens anyways), “Riko and I used to talk about you. We used to wonder what happened to you after you ran away. We'd make up stories about how you went to Antarctica and made friends with penguins, or how you were in Paris sightseeing. Everything we ever wanted to do. You were everything we wanted. The stories got less and less extravagant— at some point we said you were in the city, and we laughed. That was literally all I said.  _ I bet Nathaniel is in the city.  _ We wanted to leave. We wanted out. And then we went out to New York once for a photoshoot and realized we'd been so disconnected from the world that we couldn't handle being in any space larger than an Exy court. Then we stopped wishing we could be you.”

 

Kevin has no idea where the words are coming from, but once they're out they don't stop despite how they burn on their way out and scrape at his throat, like they know they shouldn't be spoken but rather kept.

 

What he doesn't mention is how Riko used to scoff at the idea of being anything outside of the Raven’s Nest, how he used to laugh and brush it off in favor of vying for his father’s attention. It was only when Kevin permanently moved into Castle Evermore and he told Riko stories about being abroad that he began to wonder if there was anything more than Exy for them. It was short-lived and Riko only humored the idea for Kevin’s benefit— unlike Kevin, Riko had never had any reason to believe in the illusion of something better, something more. Sneaking out to the city was a little like what Kevin had longed for, but what he really wanted was what he had now: the freedom to go where he wanted, to eat something he chose for himself, to wear anything that wasn't printed with a raven insignia. At least, he had until he'd actually gotten that freedom and felt nothing but the Riko-shaped hole beside him. 

 

“I used to be jealous of you,” says Neil. Kevin can’t fathom why Neil is humoring him, but listens all the same. “Exy was the only thing I had left and I wasn't allowed to have it. I hated you because you represented everything I couldn't have, the last thing that made me a real person and not another false identity.”

 

“And I hated you because you got out of this mess and then for some reason dragged yourself back into it. You were  _ free,  _ Neil. I didn't understand why you wanted to come back.”

 

“Funny, isn't it?” 

 

“Funny,” agrees Kevin. It shouldn't be, but it is. 

 

Neil might have been a backliner. He wouldn't have signed with the Foxes, who would still have been the laughingstock of Class I Exy. Kevin would have come back to Edgar Allan eventually with nothing to keep him with the Foxes. 

 

It really was funny. 

 

Unprompted, Kevin gets up, wincing at the renewed throbbing in his head, and gingerly pushes the door open. The hall is dark enough that it’s not so hard to disregard the blurred shadows of the Foxes skulking as he makes a beeline for Riko. 

 

Only one new bruise paints his face, as far as Kevin can see, right on the victory tattoo on his left cheek. Backed against the wall, Riko looks smaller than ever.

 

“If it matters,” he says quietly, “I’m… sorry.”

 

A lie. Riko is many things, but a good liar is not one of them. He’s always spilling at the edges with everything. Lying is punished in the Raven’s Nest too harshly for it to be really worth learning how to lie.

 

“It doesn’t matter,” Kevin informs him. “Not to me. And I know you’re only sorry because you got hurt for it.”

 

Riko straightens up and opens his mouth as if to say something, but Kevin cuts him off before he can. “I don’t want to hear it.”

 

“It’s not about  _ you _ , Kevin—”

 

“Stop it. I…  _ god, _ Riko, just… shut up, would you?” Kevin snaps. His head's spinning- with what, he's not sure, and the alcohol makes him irritated at how hard it is to think.

 

“Make me,” he challenges, and maybe it’s the alcohol making him reckless and leaving his conscience in the dust or the bone-deep exhaustion or the eyes of the Foxes boring into them from the shadows surrounding but Kevin is so, so tired of the charade, this dance they’re playing at. He doesn’t want to keep tiptoeing around Riko like both of them are made of glass. He should push him away. He should punch him. He tries so hard to hate Riko for how he’s broken Kevin but can’t stay away from him. There’s too much he needs to say and he has no way of saying it out loud, of making it real. 

 

So he catches Riko’s face in his hands and kisses him.

 

The surprised moan escaping Riko’s mouth sets Kevin’s senses aflame. Absently Kevin notes how he tastes like whiskey and that his hands are buried in Kevin’s hair, but Riko’s touch cuts a clean line right through his blurring thoughts. Kevin’s impatient— he’s waited so  _ goddamn long  _ for this— but all the same, he pulls away.

 

Riko looks split wide open in front of him, the mask suddenly sloughed off. Suddenly the Raven, the Exy King, the monster with a smile like glass shards is gone and there is nothing but Riko, stripped raw and clear. He leans forwards and tugs Kevin towards him again. This time, Kevin is demanding, possessive as he relearns the lines and edges of Riko’s mouth, the distant memory of how easily they fit together returned.

 

It feels like coming home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for inconsistent writing style i spent less time on this and felt like you guys might be tired of hearing kevin angsting about everything so it's a bit more action-centric now. also sorry for really weird convoluted metaphors/similes i swear they sounded cool in my head


	5. tapping at my chamber door

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay uhh if you expected good coherent writing then stop reading because i, in some coffee-induced delirium, decided to write non plot relevant smut for no reason. i am so sorry. all that good complex characterization? gone. like not all of this chapter is meaningless smut but uhh enough of it is.

 

Familiar footsteps sound from the hallway— footsteps he recognizes, but a flood of water hits his face again and the sound washes out.

 

The door slams open and Riko’s running to him, until the looming figure above him reaches out and strikes him. Through the fabric, Kevin watches Riko’s blurry shape careen backwards and fall. 

 

The sharp  _ crack _ noise Riko’s skull makes when it hits the floor cuts through the water and the pain right to Kevin’s core, who dearly wishes that the sound isn’t as familiar as it is.

 

“Stop it,” whimpers Riko from somewhere behind. “I—  _ please—” _

 

In response, the Master tips more water over Kevin’s covered face. Even through choking and sputtering he hears the Master say, “You will watch. And if you speak again I will cut his mouth off.”

 

Somewhere in the dim corners of what's left of his thoughts, Kevin wonders why the Master said  _ his mouth  _ and not  _ your mouth,  _ but another flood of water crashes into his face and he forgets what he was wondering while he tries to breathe through the water. 

 

Riko doesn't speak again and instead watches.

 

It's hard to remember what time is supposed to feel like when you're strapped to a board with a cloth over your face and water is being poured over it repeatedly. When you can't breathe and no matter how far up you swim you're still drowning because your limbs are tied down. 

 

But it does feel like hours have passed before the Master strips the cloth away and undos the straps. Kevin’s exhausted and panting like if he doesn't breathe fast enough something might steal the air out of his burning lungs. His throat and nose feel like they're on fire, as are his eyes. Through a blurry haze he finds Riko and collapses into his arms. 

 

Kevin’s head is throbbing and feels like a cup that's too full. Riko holds him tight and Kevin lets himself fall, trusting Riko will always catch him. 

 

The Master’s gone now, leaving them to pick up the pieces, so Kevin tugs Riko in for a kiss. To his surprise, Riko flinches, and Kevin pulls away.

 

“Sorry,” he whispers, but Riko shakes his head and yanks him closer by the collar, smothering him in an aggressive kiss as if to make up for his flinch. It disquiets Kevin— Riko doesn’t  _ owe _ him anything— but it’s a little hard to think about anything at all when Riko’s tongue is inside his mouth and the world around them falls away.

 

Even so, Kevin remembers his own name after a few moments and asks, “Why did the Master say he’d cut  _ my  _ mouth off, not yours?”

 

Riko casts his eyes down and mutters, “It doesn’t matter.”

 

Of course, coming from Riko that means  _ it matters too much and we are not talking about it. _ Kevin doesn’t ask. He also doesn’t ask why the Master was waterboarding him today- earlier today he’d found Riko lying on the floor of the locker room with a concussion so bad he’d vomited as soon as he tried to stand up. He’d been limping all day but wouldn’t tell Kevin what was wrong with his legs. In the Raven’s Nest, your partner was punished for your mistakes and you were made to watch while they bled for your wrongdoing. 

 

It was impossible to resent your partner for screwing up and causing you pain, though, not when you’re so intrinsically tied to them that every punch they take feels like a blow to you as well, not when you breathe the same air and live the same lives. Ravens are never more than a few meters away from their partner, and not being in the same room as them sets them on edge. This is the cost of being the best team in the nation by miles— you sell your life to the Master in exchange for glory for five years. And for Riko and Kevin, for as long as they’re useful to the main branch. Their whole lives, maybe.

 

Something dark catches Kevin’s eye. 

 

It's a feather— a raven’s feather, sleek and black. Kevin turns around and there are more of them, slick and stark black, scattered— flitting back and forth, spinning in circles and drowning out the lights. He turns around again but Riko is gone, replaced by black feathers swallowing up his vision and flying into his face. The raven feathers are everywhere now, completely obscuring his vision, flying into his mouth and nose so Kevin can't breathe again, but this time it's not water stopping him from screaming. They itch, and he tries to shake them off until one hits his left hand and it erupts into blistering pain again and Kevin swears he can feel the shattered bone edge poking out through his skin—

 

***

 

With a start, Kevin wakes. He realizes that Riko is shaking him, hissing his name. Kevin looks down at his left hand with a sense of foreboding, but there is nothing but the white line running across it. The sense of disorientation doesn't fade until he looks up at Riko and sees the victory tattoo; it snaps him right back to reality, to the spare dorm in Fox Tower. Kevin tries listing everything he remembers to be true—  _ we won championships, I'm a Fox, Wymack is my father _ , but it doesn't help enough. Especially because a few weeks he'd added  _ Riko is gone _ to the end of that list. 

 

“Kevin,” snaps Riko again. “ _ Kevin. _ What day is it today?”

 

“I— what?”

 

“What day is it?” he repeats. 

 

The question makes him think enough to be slightly annoyed. Only when he remembers it's Tuesday does Kevin finally shake off the last of the black feathers sticking to him from the dream.

 

“Court,” says Riko. Kevin doesn't reply— he doesn't need to— and gets up stiffly to follow Riko out of the dorm. 

 

None of the Foxes are willing to stay in the same enclosed, small space as Riko for any period of time, which rules out carpooling, so for the past few weeks they've been going to the Foxhole Court by foot. In any case, it's about 2 AM. The burn in his muscles from jogging tires him out by the time they're at the court, but the sight of blistering orange walls and fox paws emblazoned everywhere makes him feel better. The presence of an Exy court makes him feel a little more like he belongs in his own body. 

 

Riko must have known that Kevin needed to see an Exy court to calm down. Of course. But somehow they don't end up playing Exy at all, or even stepping onto the court. 

 

***

 

If Kevin thought he could convince himself that it wasn't his own idea to be on a bus headed to Virginia, then he still probably wouldn't have bothered trying to lie to himself. Several ideas buzz around in his head but which excuse he's using is still unclear– he wants to say a last goodbye? Make sure Riko’s okay? — and he doesn't manage to settle on one before his feet carry him to Castle Evermore, seemingly of their own volition (though Kevin is perfectly aware that he's capable of stopping and turning around, he never does.) 

 

The memory is so well-treaded that Kevin finds himself too soon in the hallway where his dorm is, in Black Hall, and even as he wonders how he's going to go about doing something that seems like an incredibly ill-advised idea, now that he's actually here, instinct dictates he push open the door like he's coming back after Exy practice. 

 

The sense of foreboding fades a little when he finds Riko, not bleeding, not unconscious, but merely sitting with his feet kicked up on his desk. Kevin’s desk, actually. It's like he's just walked into a frozen moment— all of his books are still there, homework from the day he ran still on the table, untouched. For a moment he wonders if he simply just came back like that, did his homework, went to classes, went to practice (undoubtedly his old Raven gear is still in the gear locker waiting for him) he could just fix everything and no one would ask any questions. Go back to the way it used to be. No Foxes, no broken hand. 

 

But as soon as Riko looks up at him, caught off-guard for once, the illusion fades. Kevin can't fix this by pretending nothing’s happened, and he can't ever be a Raven again. Not that he doesn’t already still feel like a Raven wearing a fox pelt and desperately hoping no one looks into his face and sees feathers and a beak.

 

Riko, to his credit, doesn't look surprised. He casts his eyes down before crossing the room in several long strides towards Kevin. 

 

Kevin tries to say something, but there are no words to be said. He opens his mouth all the same, but when Riko kisses him he forgets what he was trying to say. 

 

If you asked Kevin to place today on a calendar, he probably couldn't. When he looks into Riko’s half-closed eyes suddenly they're just Kevin and Riko, the Raven boys. It could be any weekend evening after practice, stealing moments from the unforgiving jaws of the Raven’s Nest. Riko might never have broken Kevin’s hand, who might never have run away— not in this fragment of something better. Kevin lets himself forget everything that’s happened this year when Riko pushes him into the wall and holds him there while he claims Kevin’s mouth with his own, hungrily. 

 

Riko’s hand finds Kevin’s wrists and pulls them up, above his head, and pins them against the wall. The wrists are just theatrics— Riko’s entire body is pressed against Kevin and he couldn’t move if he tried. His world falls out from underneath his feet and narrows down to the taste of Riko on his lips, hot and insistent.

 

This is the language their passion speaks in; force and taking and borderline violence because this is how they were raised, in a world too small and too full of fangs and knives— of course their love speaks no tongue but fire, when Riko has never been taught gentleness and he loves Kevin in the same way he hates him: with force. Where Kevin is so close to losing his mind that his unasked question presents in the form of biting Riko’s lower lip and eliciting those little gasps from him, so desperate for the fleeting illusion of control. 

 

It is nothing tender and slow and soft. The tightrope they’re walking is a knife’s edge and Riko shoves him right over the edge when his hips shift against Kevin’s increasingly tight pants and a choked moan escapes his lips. 

 

Kevin’s mouth opens under Riko’s, who mumbles something against the kiss. It takes him a moment to realize it’s his name-  _ Kevin, _ and the way he says it makes it sound like an accusation. A plea. It sets his blood humming and sends a jolt of heat straight down his spine.

 

Kevin hasn’t allowed himself to have this, not even on quiet nights behind the locked door of his empty dorm in Fox Tower with a hand down his pants and the other clamped over his mouth (that still couldn’t stop Riko’s name falling from his mouth like a prayer), guilt and pleasure washing over him in equal measure.

 

He almost lets out a whine when Riko’s mouth leaves his but it turns into a choked gasp when Riko trails kisses down his neck, across his collarbone, leaving sparks in his wake. His delicate fingers slide down, catching for a moment on his too-tight collar; briefly, Kevin considers taking his shirt off because it’s suddenly too hot to breathe but Riko’s impatient and continues on his way down.

 

Somehow, Kevin doesn’t understand what Riko’s trying to do until he’s on his knees in front of Kevin, fingers fumbling at the clasp on his trousers. 

 

This very image of Riko on his knees, giving for once instead of taking without mercy makes Kevin’s head spin. He’s dimly aware of his own hands coming down, carding through Riko’s hair and coming to rest at the sides of his neck. 

 

Riko might be the one on the floor but in this moment Kevin feels utterly and completely powerless as Riko tastes him  and as licks of pleasure race up his spine Kevin looks down at Riko. That beautiful, cruel face, gazing up at Kevin with his mouth wrapped around him— the way he looks at Kevin like he's the god of his religion, like he's the answer, his eyes almost black from pupils blown wide and so dark that Kevin’s suddenly afraid that they’ll swallow up all the light around them. Riko hums, low in the back of his throat, and the sensation against him sends ripples of heat right to Kevin’s core. Kevin barely has time to grind out a warning through gritted teeth before he gasps and comes so hard his vision whites out.

 

Riko stands, and Kevin, unsteady without something to hold him in place, almost stumbles— the sparks slowly fade and the last of the aftershocks wash through him. 

 

Kevin can taste himself on Riko’s mouth when he pulls him close and kisses him, slow and lazy. They fall into Riko’s bed together, a tangle of limbs and kisses and warmth. 

 

As Riko’s delicate fingers trace Kevin’s jawline he shifts against Riko’s tented pants and is rewarded with a surprised moan, a sound Kevin wouldn't have thought Riko was capable of making if he hadn't heard it before. Kevin does it again and Riko manages to choke back his groan. He reaches up and gently pulls away the hand Riko’s muffled his mouth with.

 

“I want to hear you,” whispers Kevin, before he continues on his way down. His hands are still shaking but in no time he's got Riko’s fly unzipped and his pants yanked down to his knees. 

 

Kevin isn't entirely sure how to go about doing this, but judging from the sounds Riko is making, he must be doing something right. He lets out a strangled gasp and Kevin revels in how easy it is to take Riko apart, to unravel him and watch every wall of scar tissue he's built around himself crumble to dust. How only Kevin holds the keys to Riko, whose fingers are tangled in Kevin’s hair. 

 

“Kevin,” Riko gasps, voice cracking, before his hips jerk upwards and he comes. 

 

Time slips between his fingers like sand. The clock on the wall tells him it's almost three in the morning, but he doesn't want to let go of Riko in his arms. 

 

“Stay,” whispers Riko.  _ Stay here. Stay with me.  _

 

It's not a request. It's a demand. Perhaps if things had been different, it would have been an assertion— not  _ you must stay with me _ but rather  _ you will stay regardless and I am just stating a truth.  _ Kings don’t expect their subjects to have minds of their own. Riko doesn’t give orders because that would imply that there is a choice to be made, to follow them or defy him.

 

Still, Kevin shakes his head minutely, though he know Riko can't see him with his head tucked against Kevin’s chest as they lie on the narrow bed tangled in sheets. 

 

“You know I can't,” he mumbles in reply. Can’t  _ what,  _ he’s not sure. But Riko doesn't protest, and Kevin doesn't move. 

 

For a long while, he counts Riko’s breaths as they even out, until he's asleep. It's as if Kevin’s left some part of himself behind when he extricates himself from Riko, like a tangle of heartstrings are yanking him backwards as he pulls his shirt on and gingerly pulls the door open. 

 

Momentarily Kevin wishes Riko would wake up and force Kevin to stay. But Kevin is the writer of his own story now, and Riko doesn't hold his strings anymore. Or he  _ shouldn't _ , at least, but Kevin’s unsure of whether he's ever really the one in control at any given moment. 

 

Kevin’s wits don’t return to him, either, though he seems to have left them behind at some point before he arrived. He doesn’t immediately regret everything as soon as the pervasive red glow of the Raven’s Nest is gone from his vision, not even when he’s back at Palmetto State with the hood of his jacket pulled over his head and sneaking past a back door to avoid paparazzi. Even at this time of night, there are probably cameras planted around Fox Tower’s entrances to catch a glimpse of Kevin.

 

Some small part of him is still there, at the Raven’s Nest, wrapped in Riko’s arms. Or rather, it was always there and had never really left.

 

There’s tequila in the tall cupboard of their dorm that only he and Nicky can reach without a stool, but the moment his hand brushes against the cold metal handle he decides against it. A little guiltily, Kevin thinks that he wants Riko’s smell to cling to him for as long as possible instead of trying to wash it out with alcohol.

 

It's tempting, though. Kevin’s sure that he'll find his spine at the bottom of an empty bottle of liquor, but he turns away all the same. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for short chapter i'm almost done with the next big chunk and i'll be updating again within the next week with, you know, actual plot and character relevant content


	6. wrought its ghost upon the floor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for mentions of past rape in this chapter

Kevin doesn't remember where the rest of the night went until he wakes up the next morning on the couch in the foyer, Riko asleep with his head in Kevin’s lap. 

 

Neil and Andrew are stood in the doorway, regarding them. Merely a moment passes while they stare at each other before Riko jolts awake with a violent start. A nightmare. 

 

Kevin has always hated how easy it was for Riko to read Kevin— he wears his emotions on his sleeve and when he dreams Riko can always tell when it's a nightmare. Riko, on the other hand, always sleeps stiff as a brick no matter what is happening under his eyelids. Kevin never has any way of telling. 

 

The clock on the wall tells him it's time for morning practice and that they should be changing for practice about now.

 

Riko doesn't meet his gaze for too long and instead stares out into a distance Kevin can't see as they walk stiffly to the court. His eyes are glassy and doll-like. Inanimate.

 

“You okay?” he asks tentatively. 

 

And just like that, the strings snap. 

 

Too quickly, Kevin’s shoved against the court wall with a knife pressed to his throat. The Foxes’ sounds of protest are distant and hazed— Kevin only has eyes for Riko, whose stare is no longer glazed over but burning. 

 

“Ask me that  _ one more time,”  _ he snarls viciously, voice cracking. “I dare you. Like I'm made of fucking glass.”

 

The knife against his neck burns cold. Riko seems to notice at the same time as Kevin that gleaming tear tracks are running down his own cheeks and drops the shaking knife with a sharp clatter to furiously wipe at his eyes. Kevin tries to count Riko’s breaths, but they're too fast and too ragged, until they collapse into choked, hoarse laughter.

 

“This was a mistake,” Riko croaks. “I know you better than anyone and I couldn't see this coming.”

 

“Couldn’t see what coming?”

 

“You and your pack of guard dogs. Foxes, whatever. Like you even want me here for any reason except to set your hounds on me. It’s okay, though. I’m not mad. I suppose you think I deserve this. And I’m the stupid one for thinking you were playing right into my hands,” mumbles Riko. “I— we have to go, Kevin. The Master won't like it if we're late.”

 

It hits Kevin like a blow to the chest right in his heart, stealing the breath right out from his mouth. 

 

Riko thinks Kevin wants him here so that the Foxes can… what? Take their revenge for everything he’s done to Kevin? 

 

_ He thought you were trying to hurt him and he came anyways. _

 

The idea that Kevin would ever willingly try to hurt Riko is so wrong that it’s hard to think about. Riko is his other half. Hurting him would be like hurting himself and whatever god is still watching them knows that Riko doesn’t need Kevin to do that for him.

 

“You're safe here, Riko,” Kevin tries. “The Foxhole Court. Tetsuji can't hurt you here.”

 

“He can always hurt me,” insists Riko with an air of despondency. “Even here. All he needs is that fucking raven’s head cane. Never mind what he can do with a bucket of water, a lighter,  his belt...”

 

“I'm here,” promises Kevin. “We're here. We made it. He can't touch you anymore. I'm here.”

 

Riko looks up with red-rimmed eyes and a wobbling lower lip. “No, you're not. You're not really here. Good try, but I know you're not real. You never are.”

 

As if Riko can feel Kevin’s bleeding heart, he leans closer, wrapping his delicate fingers around Kevin’s neck. He doesn't tighten his grip, but its presence is heavy and his stare is viper-like, waiting to pounce.

 

“How do you know I'm not real?” asks Kevin quietly. 

 

“You never tell me anything I don't already know about myself. Everything I’ve done, everything I deserve and don’t deserve. I’ve heard it all before.”

 

Kevin lets his own hands drift upwards until they're over Riko’s fingers wrapped round his neck. They're cold and knotted with scars, including the line running down his left hand. Kevin can see now that it's come from a flesh wound, not a broken bone like his own, but knowing Riko’s dexterity with a knife that he learned from Tetsuji doesn't make him feel any better about it. 

 

If he looks a little closer, he can imagine the scars running up his arms and across his soul. The cuts across Riko’s own neck are fading, but Kevin doesn’t think his scars will ever really go away for good.

 

Riko’s grip tightens. The icy chill of his fingers leeches into his skin. 

 

“Careful,” warns Andrew quietly from behind them. “I don't know where I'd have to hide your pretty face after I carve it off.” 

 

Riko lurches backwards and unsheathes yet another knife— not his favorite switchblade, but another gleaming, wicked blade (Kevin's long since learned from both Riko and Andrew that an obscene number of knives can be hidden in Exy gear)— and points it at Andrew. His tone is suddenly conversational, hauntingly calm when he says, “Don't call me that.”

 

“What, _ pretty?”   _ scoffs Neil. “I underestimated how insecure you are—”

 

“They used to call me  _ pretty _ ,” snarls Riko. “They said they wouldn't have touched me if I wasn't so pretty.  _ Pretty boy with a pretty face _ .”

 

“Who?” asks Kevin, apprehensive. 

 

“The Master,” spits Riko, ”locked me in the changing room with them, the biggest fifth-year senior backliners at the time, and told them to do whatever they wanted with me. He made sure they signed with the Maryland Wildcats after they graduated so they'd never be far from Castle Evermore. God, how long ago was that? I was… fourteen? Not sure. He always had me drugged to high hell so he could hear me scream and I wouldn't kick up a fuss. Oh, the  _ memories,” _ snickers Riko mockingly, like he's laughing at someone else. “Or lack of. They took turns face-fucking me with my head against the wall and my skull kept hitting the lockers. Kind of hard to remember.”

 

Kevin’s breath is knocked out of his chest in one sharp exhale. Riko merely laughs hysterically and speaks again even as Kevin tries to process everything, head spinning.  

 

“That's where I got the idea,” he says, jabbing his knife in Andrew’s general direction. “Nothing quite like being fucked so hard you can't even stand up to warn you off Kevin Day. Didn't work for either of us, though,” Riko muses. 

 

“Why,” croaks Kevin, trying to remember how to breathe since it feels like something massive is sitting on his chest and no other words coherent enough to spill out of his dry mouth. “Why?” 

 

Riko dips his head patronizingly, putting on a show. It's his camera smile pasted over raw emotion and the cracks in his mask and it hurts to see. “We weren't careful enough. He found out and said he'd make me watch while you—”

 

Riko breaks off. There's a pause, too long, while Kevin barely dares to think of what might have happened. 

 

He changes track. “I asked— no, I didn't. I  _ begged _ . I got down on my fucking knees and fucking begged him to let me take the punishment meant for you.”

 

“How noble,” drawls Allison, arms crossed and glaring at them down her nose. “Gee, what a sacrifice! Little Riko giving up his dignity for the boy he loves to stay safe—”

 

“He didn't do it for Kevin,” snorts Aaron derisively. “He did it because he thinks he's the only one allowed to touch Kevin.”

 

“Shut up,” snaps Kevin, because it's truer than he wants it to be. Riko can't let his property be damaged even at the cost of his own wellbeing. “Riko, why didn't I know about this?” 

 

“Minyard is right,” he muses, voice taking on a half-mad, sing-song tone. “The Master gave me to you when I was nine and said you were my responsibility. No one is allowed to hurt you except me.”

 

_ The monster has come out to play _ , thinks Kevin nonsensically. No, that's not right. The monster was always here, rippling under the surface, waiting for a moment to burst out. Riko is the sheep wearing the wolf's pelt and no one is brave enough to get close enough to look him in the eye and see that he is not the hunter whose fangs are dripping with blood in front of them right now.

 

“He's not your  _ property,  _ you sick—” cuts in Matt. 

 

“You could have told me,” says Kevin, ignoring him.

 

“No, I couldn't have. You would never have touched me again if you knew the Master was punishing me for it.”

 

“Tetsuji was…” 

 

The pieces fall into place, slowly, but Kevin refuses to believe it. How could he have never noticed Riko taking the fall for them so many times, every time Kevin had fallen apart and let Riko stitch him back together with kisses and he'd lost himself in Riko’s featherlight touch? Every stolen glance, a brush of fingertips when Tetsuji was looking the other way, desperate, fast kisses like they were running out of time and always half listening in case someone came down the hallway— fragments of peace that kept Kevin sane, but now...

 

“It was a nuisance I was willing to deal with,” asserts Riko. 

 

“A  _ nuisance,”  _ chokes Kevin, thinking of every time Riko had limped onto the court, wincing when he sat down, but Kevin couldn't make him say what was wrong with his legs. Every time he half-flinched before Kevin leaned in to kiss him and then insisted he was fine. Every time Riko inexplicably lost his voice for a day, or coughed and spat blood and said it was just a sore throat. 

 

“Yes,” says Riko, sounding slightly cross. “And—”

 

“Stop it,” begs Kevin breathlessly. “How can you— why did you… was it really worth it?” 

 

_ Was I really worth it?  _

 

Riko has the audacity to look  _ confused,  _ like he doesn't get that if he's allowed to let himself be torn into bloody pieces for Kevin then Kevin is allowed to  _ care.  _ d

“Of course,” he says, like it's the easiest thing in the world to answer; _d_ _o you like sports?_ or  _can you do me a favor?_ and not  _you thought it was_ _worth letting them do that to you for this?_   

 

“Oh, this is exactly why you couldn't know. If you were really here, well...” Riko sighs wistfully, trailing off as if he's lost himself and what he's trying to say.

 

“Still think I'm not real?” murmurs Kevin. 

 

“I know you aren't,” replies Riko with a small laugh. “Kevin doesn't give a shit about me. He got out of this hellhole. He's never coming back, good  _ fucking _ riddance, and I'll never have to see him waiting in the dorm or wearing that black and red uniform again—”

 

He breaks off suddenly and stares at Kevin again with his shattered eyes, running his gaze up and down. Kevin’s unsettled to find that it’s the same kind of gaze Riko has when he’s assessing someone— for danger, for flaws, for anything he can exploit. 

 

“That uniform…” he repeats slowly.

 

Kevin’s wearing orange and white now, Fox colors, familiar as a second skin but still not as natural as red and black feel on him and downright foreign on Riko.

 

“Do I always wear the Raven uniform when you see me?” asks Kevin quietly. 

 

Riko stares for a longer moment. “Not… not always. Once. You were wearing— I don’t know, a hoodie, or something.”

 

“That was me,” whispers Kevin hoarsely, remembering their tryst last winter. “I’m real. I’m here. Tetsuji can’t hurt you. If he tries to, I’ll take that cane of his and fucking break his legs,” he promises. He doesn’t know where the ire is coming from, but the last half of his soul is real and barely there next to him and he can’t let Riko slip through his fingers one more time at any cost. 

 

Riko was willing to let himself be used like a toy for Kevin. Kevin’s wondering what _he_ wouldn’t be willing to do if it meant he’d never lose Riko again, and he can’t think of anything. 

 

Riko’s dark eyes flutter shut and his knees finally give out, and he collapses into Kevin, burying his face in the crook of Kevin’s neck. Out of instinct he catches him and holds him tight, knowing he's the only lifeline stopping Riko from drifting away. It’s as if Kevin can feel the life bleeding out of him, leaving an empty, pale, washed out husk. Every shard of Riko digging into his skin stings, but he doesn't let go. He stares ahead at the Foxes watching impassively, daring them to say anything. Warning them not to.

 

_ My Raven prince,  _ thinks Kevin hopelessly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was... really difficult to write omfg i basically projected all my own issues onto riko which is how 90% of my characterization of him comes from so this felt really personal,,, but i digress and also? can i just say that i love all of your comments and every time i see one it literally becomes the highlight of my day because the fact that people read my stuff and they like it? they understand what i'm trying to say? is so amazing to me and even if i don't reply to your comment know that i read every single one and i love them so much and i love you all.
> 
> i think we're in the home stretch- nevermore wasn't really supposed to be a full length thought-out fic and started out as an amalgamation of all my headcanons, snapshots of riko and kevin when they were young and if riko had survived, but i think i've thought out a conclusion for it, so much as i hate to say this, i think this fic is ending soon- maybe another chapter or so? i loved writing this and i hope you enjoyed reading it too.


	7. quoth the raven, "nevermore"

University of Texas isn't a particularly special team, in terms of skill or otherwise, but the Foxes barely manage to beat them by a fair point margin in the first half. Neil shoots Kevin a glare and Kevin glares back, but for the next half he tries his best to ignore the pair of eyes trained on him from the front row of the seats. Riko’s eyes. 

 

If he looks back at Riko, if he so much as glimpses him, cold as stone and watching like a statue, Kevin knows he won't be able to play. If he came to unsettle the Foxes and get them to slip up, it worked (at least on Kevin). 

 

Walking out through the court door and feeling Riko’s gaze slide off him is like having an anvil lifted off his back, at least until he's changed out of his gear and finds Riko waiting for him leaning on the hall railing. Right over the edge is a three-storey drop to the pavement below, and Riko’s leaning right over it. 

 

Somehow, he's still surprised despite fully expecting this. 

 

“What are you doing here?” he asks tentatively. 

 

He merely raises an eyebrow, looking thoroughly bored. A lit cigarette rests between his fingers and through the haze of smoke Riko’s sharp edges are slightly blurred. 

 

“You don't smoke,” says Kevin. 

 

“I don't,” repeats Riko. He puts the cigarette between those cruel, beautiful lips for a moment before offering it to Kevin. 

 

Kevin doesn't smoke, either, but he takes the stick and takes a long drag, wondering if he can taste Riko’s lips on the cigarette or if the smoke is clouding his thoughts. 

 

Both of them look down at the concrete pavement below. The railing barely goes up to his chest and if he leans forwards far enough, maybe… 

 

Suddenly, a pressure on his back— Riko’s hand— accompanied by his silk-smooth, poison-laced voice in his ear startles him. 

 

“How far do you still have to fall?” he muses. Kevin looks down over the railing, Riko’s palm still pressed against his back and pinning him to the railing with enough force that it's hard to breathe with the metal bars against his ribs. 

 

All he has to do is push a little and Kevin would be tumbling over the edge, and small and birdlike as his figure seems as he is Kevin has no doubt that Riko is strong enough to do it. Kevin imagines what his own entrails would look like splattered on the concrete below, then shakes his head. 

 

“Three floors isn't enough,” says Kevin. “You can't kill me.”  _ Can’t  _ or  _ won't,  _ he's not sure. 

 

Riko shoves him harder, until he's looking over the edge at the floor with the metal railing digging into his chest. Three floors… it isn't so much until he's staring right at it and is an inch away from tumbling right over the edge. 

 

“Maybe I don't need to kill you,” whispers Riko. 

 

_ No, just make sure I never set foot on an Exy court again.  _

 

Kevin feels Riko pushing harder, and right as he feels his balance shift and he's about to topple over the edge he closes his eyes— and Riko releases his death-grip and steps away, leaving Kevin to stumble backwards, dizzy with vertigo. 

 

He’s unsteady and trips over his own feet, backwards, right into Riko’s arms. 

 

“Careful, Kev,” he says quietly, but there's no humor or malice left in his voice. Kevin tries to find his feet— fails, then tries again and stands shakily.

 

Riko reaches across and tweaks Kevin’s collar straight. It’s such a simple action, something both of them would probably do without thinking, but Riko’s delicate fingers almost brush against his skin and he shivers.

 

He turns to leave, and Kevin watches his slender figure fade. Riko runs a hand through his hair carelessly and Kevin wonders if anyone will notice his heart’s stopped beating for that moment. Only when he’s stared at the empty hallway for a good minute or so waiting for Riko to come back or waiting for himself to go and follow does he realize Riko’s cigarette still burning between his fingers.

 

Kevin takes a long look at it, then stubs it out on his shoe and tosses it over the balcony. Smoke singes the edge of his thoughts all the way back to Fox Tower.

 

***

 

Fox Tower is never silent. That much, Kevin is almost used to. It still isn't easy to sleep without the suffocating silence of the Raven’s Nest and no sound apart from Riko’s breathing beside him, but he's gotten used to a perpetual low murmur in the background. Certainly it helps to drown out his own quiet voices rattling around in his head. Now that Riko’s here next to him, it should even harder to sleep next to a ticking bomb with a faulty timer— at least, he thinks so until he actually falls into Riko’s arms and drifts off. 

 

Allison's voice rising sharply catches Kevin’s ears. Arguments are so frequent amongst the Foxes, over tiny, ridiculous things. There's none of the slick efficiency of the Ravens, held in place by Riko’s knives and the Masters cane. Here, Kevin is allowed to have a personality and everyone is allowed to hate him, himself included.

 

“I don't care, Dan. He's out of line and you know it. Either he can fall in or get out,” she seethes. Kevin’s just stepped out of the elevator, back from evening practice with an unfamiliar gap at his side. Riko keeled over at practice this morning, fell straight over like his soul had suddenly tumbled out of his body, and Wymack told Kevin not to let him come to evening practice.  _ Make sure he gets some rest,  _ he'd said.

 

He'd dismissed it as impossible to keep Riko away from his life's blood, Exy, but Riko hadn't even moved to get out of bed when Kevin asked if he was coming. (He wasn't sleeping, though. Riko’s always either not eating or not sleeping, one or the other. He'd tried both once and actually ended up in the ER. Kevin watched him wither away, head still high and back still straight, and felt the bone-deep ache of exhaustion and hunger like it was himself and not Riko fading into dust.)

 

Maybe his soul hadn't found its way back into his body yet. Perhaps it’s drifted back to Castle Evermore, to join the rest of Kevin’s ghosts haunting the court. If he closes his eyes and listens, they're still running drills or laps or scrimmages, voiceless and faceless Ravens in a red and black prison disguised as a Nest. 

 

Kevin breaks into a jog, suddenly worried. Allison’s ahead of him and is already storming towards the spare dorm and right as he’s turned the corner into the hall, she shoves the door open. 

 

It’s not locked, which is how Kevin knows something is wrong. Badly wrong.

 

Allison stands at the doorway for a moment, and Kevin waits to hear her shouting at Riko, but she merely stays, staring. Her mouth is open slightly, but no words come out.

 

Warily, she backs away and shoots Kevin an indecipherable glance. Cold dread settles in the pit of his stomach. 

 

Allison’s left the door slightly ajar, and the sight greeting Kevin takes the world out from under his feet.

 

The pool of dark red blood is the first thing he sees, and for a moment he's back in the Raven’s Nest again and Riko’s slumped over on the floor, eyes barely open and face slicked with blood that feels like his own—

 

—except Riko isn't lying in the blood, he's sitting up, leaning against the wall. And the blood pooled on the floor isn't against black marble, it's old wood paneling. Riko's looking down, with his hair around his face, so Kevin can't see his eyes (thankfully, or maybe not).

 

Kevin’s thoughts have stopped to a shuddering halt and he's completely on autopilot when he crosses the room in two steps, right into an atmosphere of something that sets his nerves on edge as if he's stepped into a spotlight. Riko looks up, gaze empty and glassy, and flinches so hard that he drops the blood-slicked knife, the noise of it hitting the floor sending a jolt straight through Kevin and setting his heart hammering.

 

He's getting Riko’s blood all over himself as he helps him up, careful not to brush against his arms. There's—  _ dammit.  _ Kevin almost thinks that there's a first-aid kit, with suture needles and thread and disinfectant under the bed, but this isn't Castle Evermore anymore. He tries to whisper  _ hold on  _ to Riko, but the words stick in his throat and he still can't bring himself to look at Riko’s face. 

 

Allison's still in the hallway outside and the rest of the Foxes have converged to see what the ruckus is about. Kevin shoots them a glare cold enough that most of them filter away, silent as stone, but Andrew and Neil stay. 

 

Neil looks down. “I'll get Abby—”

 

“No,” snaps Kevin. God damn if he's ever letting anyone else go near Riko while holding sharp metal instruments, be they certified medical personnel or no. “Get her suture kit. I'll do it myself.”

 

A few years ago Kevin used to clean Riko’s cuts with just water, but at some point they got so deep that they started bleeding again when he did. He wraps them up with the bandages in the meager first aid kit in the dorm, only to find that there aren't enough for all of the cuts. They're bleeding through, too, and Kevin hopes no one notices how hard he's trying to hide his shaking hands or his hammering heart. When Neil's footsteps echo in the hallway and he sprints into the room with his quiet fox’s runner feet, neither of them say anything or meet each others eyes as he hands Kevin the suture kit. 

 

“There’s painkillers—” begins Neil

 

Riko inhales a shuddering breath and closes his eyes at the word. Kevin internally curses and shakes his head.

 

Kevin works clinically with practiced ease he wishes he didn't have. The silence stretches, wide and expansive as oceans, between Riko and him even as they sit so close that Kevin can feel Riko’s breath against his skin. The needle is cold in his hands.

 

_ Why? _ he wants to ask.

 

He doesn’t think he’s said it out loud, but Riko finally looks up and answers anyways. His eyes are half-closed and blank.

 

“It’s not enough anymore,” he whispers hoarsely. “I can’t— I never feel like… like a real person. Like I really exist, or I even matter.”

 

Carving lines into himself just to be sure that he still remembers how to bleed, slicing others into bloody pieces because their scars are proof that Riko is a real person who’s existed and created these marks, whose sparks burn too bright so fast that if you blink he's gone and the only thing left of him is a bright blur under your eyelids. Blink another time, and it's gone, too. Riko might never have existed and breathed and lived and bled, his entire existence a mere moment confined so completely behind the walls of the Raven’s Nest, if not for Kevin’s scars, the white line running down his hand, Neil's own barely-healed bruises, Jean painted black and red by the elegant brush strokes of Riko’s blades proving otherwise. And the tattoos— concrete, irrevocable proof that someone real existed to put those marks there.  _ Someone was here,  _ they scream.  _ I am taken, I have been claimed.  _

 

_ I don't plan on leaving anything behind but damage,  _ he'd said to Kevin at the Christmas banquet. 

 

Kevin thinks for a moment that he imagines the taste of blood— but no, he's just bitten his lip in an effort to stop himself from losing his mind.

 

When he's done, he carefully cleans Riko up with a damp towel, trying to be as gentle as possible even though he knows Riko won't notice or care if he hurts him. 

 

Riko sinks into Kevin’s arms and holds onto him like a lifeline— an apology, or a concession of defeat?— and when Kevin feels something wet on his cheeks he's unsure of whether they're Riko’s tears or his own. Both of them are trembling, one blow from caving in, a mangled, ruined bundle of issues and blood and tears wrapped up neatly in perfect black feathers until Kevin can’t tell if he’s holding on to Riko to stop him from sinking, or if he’s trying to save himself from drowning. 

 

***

 

The first time Riko called Kevin’s cellphone, it showed up as an unknown number. He answered out of instinct and was greeted with Riko’s voice on the other end.

 

Neither of them had phones in the Raven’s Nest, of course, so Kevin had temporarily blanked out. Riko told him he’d inked Nathaniel Wesninski and wished him a Merry Christmas. The phone made his voice so scratchy that he couldn’t tell if he was joking or not.

 

The second time Riko called him, Kevin picked up, again, out of instinct and because he’d forgotten. He was high off the buzz of finally taking his place with the Foxes, victory rushing through his veins and guilt pooling in the back of his mind. His back had been turned when Andrew broke Riko’s arm, and the sound of bone splintering made his stomach lurch— for a second he wasn’t in the court but in the dorm, tasting blood and dressed in Raven colors and not Fox colors with a boot pinning him to the floor and the other on his left hand—

 

“Kevin, oh, Kev, you wouldn’t guess what happened—” comes Riko’s voice, sharp and too loud through the phone. He breaks off with a hysterical laugh— or maybe he's sobbing, Kevin can't tell—high-pitched and wild, then continues talking too fast, slurring his speech so that Kevin can only hear every third word. “East Tower has a really nice view, you should come see it some time—”

 

“What are you doing in East Tower?”  asks Kevin, but he already knows.

 

“They said my brother wants to see me,” says Riko. “All that time I spent winning to try and get my family to acknowledge my existence and all I had to do was lose,” he giggles, slipping into garbled Japanese in the middle of his sentence. “Hey— that’s mine, what are you—”

 

Muffled commotion crackles across the line, and it goes dead. Kevin’s on his feet in an instant, exhaustion forgotten and adrenaline coursing through his blood. 

 

Kevin thinks of how Riko stopped staring in the direction of East Tower whenever they passed by to catch a glimpse of his father, his brother, anything, after a few years. The ghost of it follows him as he sprints a path he’s never treaded but feels achingly familiar. If he slows, he’ll trip over his own feet and fall. If he falls, he won’t get up again. He’s never run this fast before, not on an Exy court, not running away from the Ravens and Riko and his soul, and by the time he slams the door open— he’s Kevin fucking Day, and the security guards know they aren’t allowed to touch him even if he isn’t a Raven anymore— his lungs are burning, sweat running in hot rivulets down his back across his scars. He doesn’t feel any of it behind the blind panic. The elevator won’t be fast enough so he goes up the fire escape stairs, taking the steps three at a time while the silence of the fire escape loops Riko’s slurred, hysterical rambling over and over again in his head in between the slamming beats of his heart, suffocatingly loud in his ears.

 

_ Please _ — Kevin thinks desperately. Please  _ what,  _ he can't say.  _ Riko. Hold on.  _

 

When Kevin reaches the room where he watched Neil’s father butcher a man for making an attempt on Riko’s life years ago, he  shoves the door open without a second thought. Riko’s slumped over on the couch, leaning against a stranger dressed in black whose face looks so similar to Riko’s— the cut of his jawline, his dark, wide eyes, the cold expression he wears— Ichirou Moriyama.

 

Kevin sees tear tracks running down Riko’s pale cheeks and the pupils of his eyes are so wide and bright they’re almost completely black from whatever drugs they've pumped into him. He’s shivering violently (or trembling, he can’t tell).

 

The next thing he sees is the gun pressed against Riko’s temple.

 

Kevin’s about to shout a warning, words cold on his lips, when Riko looks up, eyes flicking to Kevin’s for a split second— 

 

—and then the gun fires.

 

***

 

“You don't have to go,” he says quietly. They both know it's not true. Ravens don’t belong in foxholes. 

 

(Riko also belongs with Kevin, but it can't be helped that the two statements are mutually exclusive.) 

 

“Just—” Kevin tries again, stumbling over his words.” Don't— you know? I…”

 

_ I need to know that you’ll be safe. _

 

Riko nods, not needing Kevin to spell it out for him. “I promise. Just for you.”

 

He pauses, then continues. “One of us has to get out of this okay. In one piece. Better that it's you. That it's the one out of us who deserves it. 

 

Kevin closes his eyes so he doesn't have to look out at the winding path leading away from Fox Tower, away from home, away from his life. Morning sun burns mist off the air, and yet he’s still cold. “That's not true. You deserve this too.”

 

He's not quite sure what  _ this _ means. Happiness, maybe, or healing. Neither of them know how to be happy or how to heal, but Kevin wonders if it's worth trying to learn.

 

The black limousine pulls up outside the dorm door, conspicuous as ever and breaking the last of their moment off. Riko pulls Kevin close for a quick kiss that's over too fast and leaves him dizzy and breathless. 

 

For a second Kevin’s fingers snag on the edge of Riko’s sleeve when he steps away, but neither of them turn around. Riko opens the door of the limo and looks back for a moment, unsure, before stepping in. 

 

“Coming?” he asks quietly. 

 

Riko knows he won't say yes. Kevin knows Riko knows and yet he still sounds half hopeful, gazing up at him and for a moment Kevin almost steps forwards to get in before he blinks and the delusion is gone. Kevin has no promises left to keep, no debts he has yet to pay, not to Riko or anyone else.

 

Riko smiles sadly, as if to say  _ of course not, but it was worth a try.  _

 

He closes the door, black painted steel swallowing him up and casting shadows over his face, but he rolls down the window. “See you there, then.”

 

“What?”

 

“Oh,” says Riko, the corner of his mouth tugging up into a ghost of a smile that makes Kevin’s breath catch in his chest. “You don't know yet? You'll find out soon.”

 

“What—” starts Kevin, but Riko’s rolled the window back down and, the bastard,  _ winks.  _ Kevin remembers that his heart is supposed to beat only when it stops for a moment, and without so much as a farewell the limo is gone, taking a little bit of his heartbeat with it. 

 

Kevin would have stood there staring at the memory of Riko’s silhouette for hours if not for Coach Wymack. “Kevin, there's a call for you.”

 

“What do they want?” he wonders, familiar dread settling in the pit of his stomach. 

 

“US Court called. Since you can play with your left hand again, they're renewing your contract. Maryland Wildcats, too.”

 

Understanding hits him. US Court starts training in a few weeks for the Olympics at their home court, Castle Evermore, and unlike Kevin, Riko’s contract was never terminated. 

 

“You don't have to go if you don't want to,” begins Wymack, but when he sees the grin stretched wide across Kevin’s face he stops.

 

_ Riko Moriyama, Kevin Day, starting strikers.  _

 

The last piece of his heart falls back into place when Kevin realizes how much he misses the sound of his name paired with Riko’s. Something bright blooms inside him, fierce and burning hot enough to keep him warm even when Riko’s absence chills him to the bone, something unfamiliar that he’s forced himself to hide and push away again and again because lying to himself would never end well, not in the Raven’s Nest and not with the threat of Riko hanging over him like a knife pressed against his neck. 

 

It takes Kevin a few moments to let himself remember how to hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this is finally done... life got in the way for a bit (it's school production tech week and i'm running on two hours of sleep per day, help)  
> can i just say? i never expected this fic to get as much attention as it did, and i'm so glad you guys enjoyed it  
> i have an epilogue partially written, but i may just post it as a separate one-shot. i also have a lot of ideas, some neil/riko/kevin things floating around, wings!au, hanahaki au, etc, but i really need to take a break from writing for now haha.  
> your comments give me life, they're always the highlight of my day and i love you all


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